


Crashing Down

by jessie_pie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Hurt Castiel, Fallen Castiel, Gen, Homeless Castiel, Human Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Sick Castiel, hurt/ comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessie_pie/pseuds/jessie_pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is alone, human, and injured.<br/>What happens next is entirely predictable.</p><p>Canon divergent after 9:03 "I'm No Angel" from Castiel's perspective, and after 9:04 "Slumber Party" from everyone else's.<br/>Please check the notes at the end of Chapter One for content warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Supernatural is not the property of this author. Thank you Osito for beta-ing selected portions of this work!  
>  _Crashing Down_ will be updated every other day, barring a county-wide internet outage or similar catastrophe.  
>  Please see end notes for content warnings.

The Reaper lied.  
He discovered this the day after Dean told him to leave the bunker, when he woke up under a concrete overpass.  
He wasn’t surprised. Reapers could heal, but it wasn’t what they were made for. Besides, April hadn’t had a lot of reason to cooperate.  
To his surprise, it was the bruises he felt first. Deep and purple, though fading to green on the edges, they covered his right side from just below the waist to halfway down his thigh. April had carefully avoided them during sex.  
April… Castiel felt a pang of regret. He would have rather it had been Meg, but she was gone, and the needs and desires of human bodies were so _loud_.  
The shallow scrape on his palm, his other memento from his near collision with the pickup, stung and burned. He raised it to his face, wincing as he did. There was a sort of catch in his arm, a stiffness somehow different than that produced by sleeping on a pile of sandbags and gravel.  
Castiel had thought he understood the human body. He could have named all of its organs, their functions and locations, a myriad of ways they could fail. But now, occupying this body- being this body- it was different. It was like memorizing a map of a mountain range, then being unable to account for the difference in perspective once you arrived. Castiel had no idea where his spleen was, and only a vague notion of his bladder, and that only because it pressed painfully on him when it grew full. Even the pain in his arm- Castiel could not name it, could only name a few things that it was not. It was as though he was only able to understand this tangled mass of tissue and blood through its protests, and then only vaguely.  
Castiel glanced at the highway. No cars. Good. Gingerly, aware now of pains along his torso and in his gut, he plucked off his sweatshirt and tee. The stab wound from the angel with the doctor vessel had reopened, as had the gashes April had sliced into his chest. The deep stab, though, the one that had killed him, was entirely gone. Maybe that had been all or nothing. But about an inch further down, blood seeped from under a flap of skin. Crowley’s gunshot wound.  
 _It takes a long, painful time to bleed out from a gut shot_ , he heard the demon say. Cas studied the wound, prodding at it with his finger. A sluggish trickle of blood oozed out. Castiel would have laughed if he hadn’t expected it to hurt. He bet Crowley hadn’t expected this. The wind was cold on his bare skin, and he thought he heard a car in the distance, so he put his shirt back on.  
When April had been pretending to be kind, pretending to be human, she had been alarmed about his blood-soaked sleeve. People were alarmed by blood. He could not afford to draw attention. He needed bandages.  
A car sped by, a maroon sedan. A semi truck roared down the road a few hundred yards behind. Cas remembered the ride to Detroit, the warmth and comfort of the cab. His stomach growled and his legs felt watery. He began to raise his hand automatically.  
Then he remembered the two priests, impaled on iron fence posts, their eyes bloody hollows. He had barely spoken to them, but they had been good men, had helped run the shelter. They had not deserved to die, and they had died because of him. He endangered people just by interacting with them. He could not do any more harm. Far too many- angels and humans- had died because of him. He had to keep them safe. To do that, he had to interact with them as little as possible. Castiel’s hand fell to his side.  
The semi rumbled past, buffeting him with a gust of hot air. Cas’s legs almost gave way from the force of the blast, and his shirt billowed out from his body, except where the blood plastered it to his chest. He needed food and he needed bandages.  
The first rule: Do not let anyone get hurt. The second rule: Stay alive.  
  
Castiel did not know how far he walked before he found a store that looked like it might have what he needed. His sense of distance was another thing that had been altered when he lost his Grace. It was different, walking from place to place, rather than looking down on the world from above.  
He only knew that he walked long enough for the sun to begin to shine in his eyes, to warm up enough to partially unzip his sweatshirt (though he had to be careful to keep the bleeding cuts hidden), and to begin to feel lightheaded from hunger and thirst.  
The store was clean, and cool, and did not smell of exhaust. He could have stayed there for a long time, but that was _loitering_. Loitering attracted attention. He could not afford to attract attention.  
He read the signs over the aisles. First aid supplies, aisle five. Yes, that would be where the bandages were.  
The clerk glared at Castiel as he walked by. Castiel flinched. Was he an angel? Did he recognize him? Or did he just dislike the indigent? Castiel had noticed that many people seemed to dislike people like him.  
Castiel looked back at the clerk as he entered aisle five. Still behind the counter. He wasn’t an angel, then. If he was an angel he would have already tried to kill him.  
Castiel put a roll of gauze in his basket and walked out of the aisle. He also needed food, something to drink- He stopped. There was a display of backpacks in the center of the store. If he had a backpack, he could carry more food.  
Dean had given him money after he told him to leave the bunker, a fistful of bills. _Don’t let anyone see how much you have_ , he had warned. Now, taking one last furtive look at the cashier, Cas removed the wad of cash from his pocket. Some of the bills were marked with a twenty, others with a fifty. He had seen twenties before. There had been one in the handful of currency Richard, the man with the truck, had given him. But he had never seen a fifty before. Castiel swallowed nervously.  
Still, though, he couldn’t spend less than one bill at a time, and it had to be safe to spend one, otherwise they would be useless, and Dean wouldn’t do that to him. He didn’t think so, anyways.  
He still didn’t know what he’d done wrong.  
The backpacks cost twenty-four ninety-nine. Ninety-nine _what_? Cents, he assumed, but coins were confusing. He had studied the round disks of metal, trying to understand them, but they were not intuitive in the slightest.  
There were not many colors, but the dark blue somehow appealed to him. He ran a finger over the material. It felt sturdy. Since it was dark, it would not show dirt. After a moment’s hesitation, he put it into his basket.  
Castiel carefully chose the cheapest food the store had to offer: plastic sleeves of peanuts, available in “Salted” and “Honey Roasted”. He wondered if the honey-flavored nuts would attract bees. He was not afraid of bees. They were gentle and industrious creatures.  
Castiel paused in front of the case of water bottles. The small bottles were cheapest, and he had to make his money last, but he had already learned that thirst was worse than hunger. Hunger made him feel hollow and weak and far away, but it could be ignored. Thirst, on the other hand, cramped his gut into a painful knot that he could not ignore. If he got the larger bottle, Castiel realized, he could travel further between stops. Maybe he could refill it and reduce his human contact even more. No one else should die because of him.  
In the end, Castiel left with the large bottle, and what he hoped was the right change.  
  
There was a balance, Castiel learned over the subsequent days. In rural areas, it was easier to avoid people. But when someone saw him, he drew more notice in small towns than in big cities. It was also harder to find the things he needed: food, water, shelter, and bandages.  
He had used the first box quickly. By the time it was gone, the gashes on his chest had mostly healed, and his palm was covered with pink, tender new skin. His arm was also bled only occasionally, usually after he lifted something heavy.  
But the wound in his abdomen ached more fiercely than the day it had reappeared. Castiel learned to move carefully, to avoid pain and avoid re-opening the tear in his flesh. It didn’t always work.  
It was frustrating and painful, but Castiel was not overly worried. His body was doing what it could to repair itself. It was a good body and had served both him and its previous occupant well.  
Sometimes, he could feel his pulse magnified and pounding in his abdomen, and the skin around the wound was flushed. This, he thought, was good. More blood to the area meant more oxygen, which meant it could heal faster.  
Castiel had other reasons to be content, as well. No one had attempted to kill him since he left the bunker, his backpack had proved more useful than he had imagined, and he had stopped feeling hungry. He had never heard of this before, but assumed it was his body’s way of adapting to a limited food supply. He was grateful. This made it easier to save his money.  
  
He saw the roof from the road. The battered metal was scarcely taller than the overgrown shrubbery that rose from the embankment, and was barely visible against the darkening sky, but Castiel had learned to look for abandoned buildings. They were relatively safe and offered shelter and warmth.  
Looking around to make sure there were no cars in sight- he did not want a passing driver to call the police- Castiel started up the driveway. The incline was steep and he paused frequently to catch his breath, pushing his hand against his side, trying to quell the red-hot throbbing that burned just below his diaphragm.  
Hunched forward, breathless, Cas studied the building. It was a mobile home in poor repair. The paint was separating from the siding in thick strips, and the roof was in worse condition than it had appeared to be from the road.  
Despite its disrepair, it didn’t look abandoned. Venetian blinds still hung crookedly in the front windows, and a detritus of hand tools lay scattered on the scraggly patch of crabgrass and hairy dandelions that passed for a lawn.  
But- a stab of pain from his gut left him dizzy and sweating- there was no car parked in the turn-around, and there were no lights on inside. Maybe the owner wasn’t home.  
It was a risk, but- the driveway was so long; the dusk made his sight so blurry- it was one he was prepared to take. _Second rule: Stay alive_.  
Unable to stand fully upright, Castiel hobbled to the door and tried the knob. Locked. If Sam and Dean were here, they could have picked it in a few seconds. _Dean_ … at the thought of him, panic worse than the pain rose in Castiel. He must have done something terribly, horribly wrong for Dean to ask him to leave, and he still had no idea what it was. He’d done so many awful things. What if this was one too many and Dean was finally done with him? What if he made that glaring, unknowable error again and the angels discovered him and descended on him like hyenas on a limping gazelle?  
Cas took a shaky breath. He was doing all he could, avoiding people as much as possible. _Don’t hurt anyone, stay alive_. He would last as long as he could.  
And now, it was nightfall, and he was cold, and the cloud cover was beginning to sink down into clinging fog. He needed a place to spend the night.  
The door was cheap, hollow core plywood. Castiel tensed his muscles, gritting his teeth against the stabbing sensation in his midsection, and slammed his shoulder into the door.  
The door stood firm. Castiel slumped against it as his knees buckled. A strangled, involuntary groan forced its way through his teeth.  
Again he struck the door. Again he fell back. Bright lights danced across his vision, and he bit back a moan. Something trickled down his lip. He licked it instinctively. It was blood.  
Again. There was a splintering sound. Blindly, he flung himself at the door.  
The door gave way, and Castiel more or less fell through it, landing on all fours inside the mobile home, pain blossoming red and hot in his abdomen.  
Castiel did not know how long he stayed there, panting, pulse thundering in his ears and throbbing in his gut. Eventually, though, the sensations died down, and Castiel pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the sink.  
There was just enough light for him to see the pile of dishes stacked in and around the sink. He fumbled for a cup and turned on the faucet. The water was lukewarm and tasted strongly of iron. He gulped it down, then refilled the cup, and filled it again. Finally, exhausted, he stumbled towards the mattress which lay in the back corner of the mobile home’s single main room, and sank onto the crumpled sheets.  
  
Thirst woke him. Something remained from his dreams- a confusing tangle of noises and motion, colors and voices, Naomi and Dean and Metatron, the glint of angel blades- but his mouth was so dry he could barely swallow, and it tasted sour.  
The room was not as dark as it had been when he went to sleep. Grey light crept through the tangled blinds. It was near dawn.  
Castiel sat up cautiously, and cringed. He needed to change his bandages, and he had ran out- again- two days ago. Maybe there would be some here.  
Cas looked around. What time he had spent with humans had mostly been with Sam and Dean, and they rarely stayed in houses. Castiel had actually been in comparatively few homes, and he had generally been more focused on dealing with the threat that had caused the Winchesters to enter than evaluating their contents, but he had a vague sense that they seemed to be organized in a generally similar fashion. There must be a way of organizing a home that made intuitive sense to humans. Castiel slowly turned his head, looking around the mobile home as he tried to imagine where the owner would have put bandages.  
Perhaps in the space that served as sleeping quarters. He didn’t want to move. But, no, most people did not have to deal with gunshot wounds on a regular basis. That was just the Winchesters. And, apparently, him.  
It wouldn’t make sense to keep first aid supplies in any of the carpeted areas. Blood was a liquid, and could easily drip onto the carpet. Carpet was essentially a fabric, and Sam had complained that it was hard to get blood out of clothes. Most people disliked messes and tried to avoid creating them- not that Cas was sure the erstwhile resident of this dwelling shared the sentiment.  
But he would assume that the man who lived here thought more or less like other people. After all, his dishes were mostly in the kitchen and his clothes were mostly in the bedroom. It was best to start with the most likely place first. The man who lived here could return at any time. Daunting as it was, he needed to leave as soon as possible. Castiel was certain that finding a stranger in your bed was a generally accepted reason to call the police. He did not want to be arrested. It would be dangerous for both him and the police.  
Castiel frowned. His thoughts were drifting again. It was so hard to concentrate. He wished the thirst, or at least the pain, would leave him alone for a little while. How could Sam and Dean do so much when bodies were so uncooperative?  
No, that wasn’t what he was supposed to be thinking about. He could just see the kitchen sink. Castiel struggled to swallow, trying to ignore the cramping sensation that he had come to identify as thirst as it vied with the stabbing pain of his wound. His palms were pressed flat against the mattress and his arms trembled. No, ignore it. One of the many inconveniences of being human. He needed to find the bandages and leave.  
He was still staring towards the kitchen. But, no, they wouldn’t be there; that would be completely unhygienic. That left only… the bathroom.  
Cas pushed himself to his feet, waited for the room to stop spinning, then lurched towards what he hoped was the right room.  
  
He found squares of gauze and a spool of adhesive tape in the cupboard over the sink. It would have to do. As Castiel peeled off his sodden bandages, he idly wondered what fluids other than blood were in the human body.  



	2. Chapter 2

Castiel did not make a plan that day. It was enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other. That was the only thing that mattered. _Keep moving, don’t let anyone else get hurt_.  
Eventually, Cas became aware that he was counting his steps under his breath: _One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four_ , just as he had done when he and his brothers had practiced complex maneuvers for extended periods. It helped somehow.  
The sun sank low, sending fiery orange streaks across the sky. The buildings had grown denser over the course of the day, from a smattering of houses to suburbs to, finally, the outskirts of a city. In the distance, Cas could see skyscrapers.  
Castiel had also become familiar with cities. They frightened him somewhat: so many people, so many potential angel vessels. But the vast numbers of people offered him the relative safety of anonymity; here, he was just one of many downtrodden individuals trudging wearily through the streets. Meeting his basic needs was easier and less risky in cities as well. Many buildings had sizable eaves, and sleeping in the sheltered alleyways between them was seldom questioned. Rifling through trash cans had earned him disgusted looks, but no one had told him to stop or called the police. Likewise, filling his water bottle at drinking fountains was much safer than attempting to use a hose. Castiel did not think he would be able to run if another angry homeowner began yelling at him for trespassing.  
It seemed to take forever for the sunset to fade out into dusk. Cas knew he had to keep walking, keep moving, but he found himself pausing, leaning against the sides of buildings, never long enough to draw attention, just long enough to catch his breath.  
Finally, it was undeniably night. He could rest without drawing attention.  
He squinted at the neon signs of the two nearest businesses: Su Yung’s All-China Buffet and Holey Temple: Piercings and Body Art. Good enough. Bracing himself against the wall of Holey Temple, Castiel crept down the alley.  
About halfway between the entrance and the bank of dumpsters, Castiel sank down the wall, drawing his knees up to his chin. Exhaustion pressed down on him, and he closed his eyes. He’d done it. He’d found a place to sleep. He wouldn’t have to move until morning.  
Castiel could already feel the decrease in mental acuity that preceded sleep. In his first days as a human, he had been frightened of it, but now he embraced it, knowing it promised eight hours free of pain and thirst.  
But sleep did not come as quickly as he wished. The brick wall was uncomfortably hard behind him, and the gunshot burned a smoky red against the fog of sleep.   
And then there was the smell.  
Castiel’s eyes opened. The smell of Chinese food permeated the alley. On any other night, it would have made his stomach rumble with hunger. But now it was nearly intolerable.   
Cas covered his nose with his arm, but it was insufficient to block the smell. Besides, his sweatshirt had odors of its own.  
Castiel stared miserably toward the entrance of the alley. A group of people passed by, their voices loud and excited. He could hear the bell over the door to the buffet chime as they entered.  
Cas looked down the alley at the dumpsters at the far end, then back at the entrance. He couldn’t be certain he’d find anywhere better than this. Castiel curled into a ball on the alley floor.  
  
He only knew he had slept because he did not remember the entirety of the night. The pain of trying to uncurl from his huddled position on the floor of the alley sent white sparks dancing in front of his eyes and made the muscles in his abdomen involuntarily tense.  
He must be getting too old for this, he thought ruefully. It was an expression he had once heard Dean use, when he and Sam were investigating a case and discovered that the witch in question had been hiding hex bags in the crawl spaces of houses. _Dean, you’re not even forty_ , Sam had said, holding the flashlight steady while his brother had groped for the small leather pouch. _Yeah, that’s like, ancient for a hunter_ , Dean had shot back crossly.  
The memory, the thought of Dean being able to even tolerate his presence, sent his heart pounding into overdrive, making him feel dizzy and sick. He didn’t dare uncurl until the feeling had passed, and even then it was a gradual stretching of painfully stiff muscles, trying to ease himself upright.  
But if there was a way to stand up gradually, Castiel had not yet learned it. He forced himself to his feet, ignoring the burst of pain from his wound that expanded like a shockwave, sending agony through his entire abdomen, and forcing him to clutch at the wall until his vision cleared.  
  
The pain got better as the day progressed. At least, as long as Castiel was careful about how he moved, it generally remained a quite manageable background roar.  
If there was something that was genuinely bothering Cas, it was the city itself. It seemed bigger than he had expected. He had thought he would be able to make his way through it in one or at most two days, but the veiled sun traced a slow arc across the sky, and he seemed barely to have moved from where he started. It didn’t help that he was still exhausted.  
Last night, Castiel had counted on exhaustion to give him the rest he needed, but that had apparently been insufficient. It seemed there was something after all to Dean’s ( _no, stay calm, breathe steadily, don’t draw attention_ ) complaints about the quality of various motel mattresses.  
Castiel wondered how much money he had left in his pocket.  
He wondered if staying in a motel would be dangerous for the proprietor or the other customers.  
As he walked, Castiel always tried to be on the lookout for possible angels: people too well-dressed, too self-assured for their environment, people whose motions lacked a certain unconscious fluidity he had never been able to imitate.  
So when a woman approached him, even though she bore none of these characteristics, Castiel was inclined to pull away. Reapers could pass for human very well. Angels were not the only foes he needed to worry about. But the woman was saying “Can I talk to you for a minute?” and the normal thing, the human thing, to do would be to acknowledge her in some way, not to retreat into the crowd as quickly as he could manage.  
And so Castiel turned to her and said “I’m sorry, I don’t have any money for your charity at this time- though I’m sure it’s a very worthy one,” he added quickly as her lips pursed.  
The woman seemed to regain her composure. “Actually, what I was going to say was that tonight is going to be a very cold night. So, if you need a place to stay, the Morton Shelter will have extra beds open.”  
Castiel took the flyer she offered him.  
“How cold?” he asked, studying the magenta paper more than her.  
“At least ten degrees below freezing,” she said. “We’re headed into a real cold snap. It could be dangerous to be outside, especially if you don’t have a good coat.”  
Castiel was aware that she was looking at his sweatshirt. “I will consider it,” he promised.  
  
It was not that Castiel intended to go to the shelter. It was just that he had promised to consider it, and a logical part of considering it was investigating the area around it.  
So it wasn’t entirely surprising that, as evening fell, Castiel found himself standing in front of the stairs leading up to the Morton Shelter.  
A man elbowed past him. The unexpected jostling sent pain shooting through him and made him make a strange, high noise through his clenched teeth.  
The man turned around. “You coming in or what?”  
“Yes. Yes, I am coming in,” Castiel answered.  
It was what a normal person would say.  
  
The Morton Shelter was in many respects similar to the Catholic shelter where Cas had spent several nights before the angels caught up to him. There was a long, open hall where they waited in line to be served trays of food, some sort of casserole. Castiel had no interest in the food, but a normal person would be hungry.  
Carrying his tray to a table, he realized that he had been served a small container of juice. This was good. He was very thirsty.  
Castiel sat down near the edge of the room. Someone slid into the seat opposite him. It was the man who had bumped into him earlier.  
Not wanting to make eye contact, Castiel looked down. He was staring mostly at the laminate wood tabletop, but he could see the other man’s tray in the corner of his vision.  
There was also a container of juice on his tray. Castiel swallowed, slowly looking up at the bearded man sitting across from him.  
“I will trade you my food for your juice,” Castiel said. His fear had vanished in the face of his thirst.  
The man raised one craggy grey eyebrow. “The apple?” he asked.  
“No,” Castiel said.  
“The bread?”  
“No-”  
“Then what?” The man seemed more bemused than anything.  
Castiel drew a short, sharp breath. Any more would be painful. “Everything.”  
The man’s eyebrows creased, meeting in the middle. “Everything?”  
Castiel couldn’t take his eyes off of the juice. “Everything.”  
The man shrugged. “Alright, then.”  
  
Castiel drank the juice so quickly that he barely tasted it. Staring at the two empty cups, he felt a moment of despair, wishing that the portions weren’t so small, or that the shelter had the resources to offer more than one per person. But there was a water fountain in the back of the dining area, and that helped. Castiel stayed near this corner for the remainder of the meal, careful not to get in the way of anyone approaching the fountain. He couldn’t risk drawing attention to himself.  
As dinner concluded, and the men walked to the room- Castiel couldn’t decide between the terms _barracks_ and _dormitory_ \- where they were supposed to sleep, he gave the fountain one last, longing look. He desperately wanted to sleep, but knew his thirst would reemerge within minutes.  
His anxiety disappeared when he saw the drinking fountain in the hall outside of their sleeping quarters. He slid his backpack under his bed and sat down on the end of the mattress. It was somewhat difficult to stand up, and a bit tiring to walk to the fountain, but the water was good, and he could have as much as he could drink. While the other men organized their belongings and prepared for bed, Castiel made several trips to the water fountain, marveling at how the others took this good fortune for granted.  
Finally, however, a volunteer announced that it was lights out, and they should only get up for emergencies. With a certain reluctance, Castiel lay down on his mattress. It was thin and lumpy, but at least it wasn’t concrete. He was more exhausted than he could recall ever being in his time as a human. His arms felt so heavy it was difficult to pull the thin blanket over himself.  
The lights turned off. The hum of the fluorescent bulbs died away. Castiel could hear the clock mounted on the far wall ticking loudly, but it was too dark to see it.  
Cas straightened his legs, hoping that if he lay flat on his back, his weight would be distributed in such a way that the springs wouldn’t poke at him so much.  
It was a terrible mistake. As soon as he uncurled, he felt an awful, tearing pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. The breath was driven from his lungs, and the contents of his stomach threatened to force their way up his throat. He couldn’t hear the clock, or see the dim shadows of his neighbor’s beds, or turn his head or even think of the absence of these things. Every muscle was rigid, locked into a spasm of pain, white light filled his vision and there was no pulse or breath or thought until finally the pain subsided and he sank back into the mattress.  
Castiel buried his face in the pillow and groaned. Trembling, he drew his knees up, huddling into a ball as though he could smother the fire that burnt in his core. But the coal still smoldered there, ruby red and burning hot, sometimes briefly flaring into outright fire, the surges no longer following the rhythm of his pulse or any pattern he could discern, but acting of their own impulse.  
Castiel opened his eyes and stared dully across the dim room. Someone snored. The sound started deep and rumbling and finished as a high wheeze. A car drove past the shelter, its headlights tracing a white line along the walls.  
For the first time, Castiel wished Crowley had finished the job.  
  
There was no pain.  
Or at least, there was very little, just a faint, distant throbbing that kept him from drifting as far as he would like.  
But it was nothing more than an inconvenience. And besides, there was no thirst, no hunger. He was very calm. He felt as though he were floating, far away from his body, far away from everything. True, his wound had reopened. But that was alright. All he needed were some bandages. It didn’t even hurt very much, and he could only feel the blood seeping through his sweatshirt if he concentrated on it, and concentrating was so hard, and floating was so easy, and so pleasant, that it was better just to drift.  
Castiel floated down the road, vaguely following the sidewalk, even though he could not feel it beneath his feet. Throngs of people rushed by. They seemed to be giving him a wide berth. Their outlines were blurry. It was like watching clouds cross the sky.  
He knew that some of the people were giving him sidelong glances, and others were speaking. But it did not matter. Their voices were indistinct, a distant hum without shape or meaning, and he was very far away and very peaceful.  
But one of the voices was closer and more insistent. Castiel tried to ignore it, but it would not go away. It tugged at him, demanding his attention until he was dragged back into his body, not all the way, but enough to feel the heaviness of his limbs and the throbbing of his gut and the sticky wetness of his blood-soaked clothes.  
He glared at the little man bobbing next to his elbow. He wanted to float again.  
“Uh, sir? Uh, buddy?” The man was about five inches shorter than him, excluding his absurdly fluffy hair. The cord connecting his headphones to his Walkman bounced against his t-shirt as he jogged in place next to Castiel. “Buddy, you’re kind of, uh, bleeding. A lot.”  
“It is alright,” Castiel reassured him. “I only need some bandages.”  
“No, I mean, that’s a lot of blood, bluddy- I mean, buddy.” Everything about the man, from the way he constantly pumped his arms as he jogged, to the incessant scuffling of his worn white leather sneakers, to his irritatingly shiny and excessively short bright blue running shorts seemed intended to drag Castiel out his pleasant state of detachment. He wished he would leave.  
Castiel studied the crimson blotch that was slowly spreading across his front. “I appreciate your concern,” he said stiffly, “But it is misplaced. The human body contains over a gallon of blood, and I have lost considerably less than that. I only need some bandages.”  
“I think you might need more than that, buddy.” The man sounded less perky and more nervous. Castiel wondered why he was wearing small bands of towelling around his forehead and wrists. It looked ridiculous. “Why don’t you sit down here-” he indicated a nearby park bench- “and I’ll get you some help?”  
“I do not require assistance.” Castiel had already informed him of this fact; why was he so insistent? But, a sneaking doubt occurred to him, and it was hard to think, because floating had been so pleasant, and now he was becoming irritated and dizzy: some questions had expected answers. He had learned from Sam and Dean that if someone asked you how you were, you always responded “Fine”, no matter what the truth was. Perhaps this was similar. Maybe there was an expected answer to the jogger’s question, and he was getting it wrong. He couldn’t risk making another mistake. He couldn’t afford to draw attention. “But I will sit down, and you may make any calls you wish.”  
“Uh, right. Whatever you say, buddy.” The jogger fished a cell phone from the pouch strapped to his waist and flipped it open.  
  
Several minutes later, an ambulance pulled up to the curb. Castiel looked away, staring at the dreamlike outline of a fountain standing several yards away in the center of a small park. Perhaps, if he acted as though nothing were wrong, the paramedics would realize that there was, in fact, no problem, and leave him alone.  
There was motion in his peripheral vision. Castiel turned his head towards it- slowly, so as not to break the spell or become dizzy. The jogger was talking to the paramedics and gesturing towards _him_. Oh.  
One of the paramedics stepped away from the conversation, and began walking towards Castiel. Cas squinted, trying to study the man’s face. He looked calm. Perhaps he would be reasonable, unlike the nervous little jogger with his sweatbands and shiny shorts.  
“Hey, I’m Steve. I heard you might need some help?”  
Castiel scowled. The man kept drifting apart, turning into blurry overlapping shapes. He wished he would stop doing that. “I am Castiel-” That wasn’t what he was supposed to say, he was supposed to say some other word, a name that wasn’t his, but he couldn’t remember what or why “-and I do not require assistance.”  
“Are you sure?” Steve’s voice was a little too calm, a little too casual, and Castiel found it very irritating. “That’s a lot of blood.”  
“You are supposed to be a medical professional.” Castiel spoke as clearly as he could. His tongue wasn’t responding right, and he wanted to make this conversation short so this “Steve” would go away. “As such, you should know the human body contains over a gallon of blood. This is an insignificant quantity.  
“It might look like more than it is,” Castiel conceded, “Due to the capillary action of the fibers of this garment.”  
“Uh-huh.” Castiel couldn’t read Steve’s expression. “Still, though, you can’t just walk around like that, Castiel. We could take you the hospital and get you patched up.”  
“I do not want- do not need the hospital,” Castiel insisted. Hospitals were dangerous, so many people and crawling with reapers, but he couldn’t say that.  
Steve looked unsatisfied with this answer.  
“All I need is some bandages,” he clarified.  
“So you’re just going to walk a mile and a half to the drugstore and pick up some bandages?” Steve asked, looking around skeptically.  
Castiel followed his gaze. People had begun to gather around them. There was a crowd. There was a crowd and they were staring. He was drawing attention. He must be doing something wrong. Drawing attention was dangerous. Maybe he was supposed to go with these men. The world lurched sideways for an instant, but Steve did not seem to feel the earthquake.  
“You know, we have bandages in the ambulance,” Steve said.  
There. An opportunity. A chance. He could make these people stop staring at him. He could be safe.  
“I will go with you,” Castiel agreed stiffly.  
  
Castiel mustered his discipline as he forced himself to step into the back of the ambulance. One of the medics- not Steve- placed a hand on his arm just above the elbow. Castiel jerked away. It was hard enough walking into this small, closed box without being touched as well. He was outnumbered, and there was only one way out of this ambulance. These men could be anything- reapers or angels or some other bloodthirsty creature- and they could be taking him anywhere. Castiel’s vision swam again, and he groaned quietly.  
The hand was against his arm again. Outnumbered, but there were only two of them, he should be able to fight them, he’d faced worse odds before… but something was wrong, seriously wrong. He couldn’t tug his arm away; his reflexes had gotten slower than a human’s… … no, that wasn’t right, he was a human now, too. The air was like molasses, pushing him back, slowing him down. His angel blade was in his backpack. He couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel much of anything. He was lying against something flat and padded. He tried to sit up, but gloved hands held him back. There was the sharp sound of scissors snipping through fabric, a faraway voice whispering “Jesus”, vague sounds and voices that meant nothing, a pinching sensation in his arm, the sense of motion, and then everything faded away into darkness.  



	3. Chapter 3

Sam scowled at the closed door. Dean always took the world’s longest showers. He was used to motels’ near-infinite supply of hot water. But impenetrable magic fortress or not, the bunker only had one hot water tank, and Dean had been in there at least fifteen minutes. And he was singing. Sam had read somewhere that people’s voices were supposed to sound better in the shower- something to do with acoustics- but Dean’s rendition of “Walking on Sunshine” was objectively so terrible that it was probably going to ruin the song for him forever. If he didn’t get out of there in- Sam checked his cell phone- five minutes, he was going down to the basement and shutting off the water.  
Dean started in on the chorus- no, he’d sung the whole thing through, he was starting the song over _again_. Sam stepped toward the door, ready to pound on it until Dean stopped singing, and tell him he had four and a half minutes to get out of there- and stopped, fist raised, as he heard Dean’s cell phone ringing.  
It was far away and muffled, and he was certain Dean couldn’t hear it over the pounding water and his own awful singing. There weren’t a lot of people who called them anymore- mostly Jodie and sometimes Garth- but he didn’t want to miss a call from either of them. The ringing sounded like it was coming from Dean’s bedroom. Sam sprinted down the hall.  
Thirty seconds and some frantic duffel bag excavation later- opened condom packets and greasy burger wrappers had apparently been stuffed in at random, and Sam made a mental note to include this in the entirely justified rant on Dean’s habits he was planning to deliver as soon as his brother got out of the shower- and he found the cell phone. He didn’t recognize the number, but that didn’t mean much. Hunters changed their phones frequently. Sometimes, they even got a call from one of the nation’s few remaining pay phones. Sam hit the “Accept Call” button.  
“Hello,” he said.  
“This is Sharon from Maple Valley Regional Medical Center,” a woman said in a brisk, professional voice. “Is Dean Winchester available?”  
A hospital. That was never good. And, nearly as alarming, they’d somehow gotten Dean’s real name.  
“Yes, speaking,” Sam said, unconsciously dropping his voice half an octave.  
“Are you familiar with a man named Castiel?” She sounded less certain now.  
Sam’s stomach lurched. “Cas- Castiel’s in the hospital?” he asked, voice rising.  
“So you do know him?” Sharon pressed.  
“Yes! What’s wrong with him? Why’s he in the hospital?” Sam scrambled to pull a pen out of the cup on Dean’s desk, and- paper, there had to be paper somewhere, he needed the address of Maple Valley.  
“Castiel was admitted three days ago with abdominal trauma. Our doctors believe it is probably a stab wound.”  
“Three days? Why didn’t you call before now?” Sam demanded, aware that he was stupidly repeating what the woman had just told him, but also aware of his own rising alarm. Castiel had seemed so fragile when he had last seen him, lost and adrift in his newfound humanity. Dean had barely stopped him from going out after him in the Impala, insisting that he had done everything he could to get Cas to stay, but had been unable to stop him. Then, he had been pathetically hungry and in obvious need of a shower, but now he was in the hospital? With a probable stab wound?  
“Castiel was delirious when he was admitted,” Sharon explained, “so it took two days for him to provide us with an emergency contact number.”  
“Delirious?” Sam knew he must sound like a badly trained parrot, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He clutched the edge of the desk with his free hand. His knuckles were turning white.  
“He was moderately dehydrated, had lost a substantial amount of blood, and had a high fever due to an infection originating in his wound,” Sharon said. “Any one of those factors could have been sufficient to impair cognition, and, given that they occurred in concert, delirium was far from surprising.”  
“But.. he’s doing better now?” He had remembered Dean’s phone number, Sam tried to reassure himself. But he’d also used his own name, hadn’t remembered to hide his identity when all of Heaven was gunning for him.  
“Castiel’s condition has improved since his admission, but he is not yet ready to be released.”  
Sam let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. There was a pen in his hand and a scrap of paper on the desk. “Ok… ok. Could you tell me Maple Valley’s address?”  
  
The Men of Letters’ shower room was gradually transforming into sauna heaven. But heaven couldn’t last if you were a Winchester, a fact Sam proved when he began pounding on the door so hard that Dean could see it rattle in its frame even through the clouds of steam.  
“Dean! Dean! Get out of there, now! We need to go!”  
Dean wasn’t about to let his little brother rush him. He’d _worked_ for this relaxed feeling, and he wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it. Leisurely, he tied a towel around his waist, then carefully twisted another one into a turban atop his hair.  
He was rewarded by Sam’s look of shocked frustration when he opened the door. But the expression lasted just a fraction of a second, then Sam recovered himself.  
“Put some pants on,” he snapped. “We have to go. Cas is in the hospital.” He gestured toward the hallway leading out of the bunker with the hand that still held Dean’s cellphone.  
Dean’s grin froze, then vanished. For a moment, Sam couldn’t read his expression, though if he had to guess, he would have said that he looked stricken, then guilty, then afraid. But the expression his face settled on was easy to read: an unconcerned, callous smirk. Dean leaned against the doorframe. “No, we don’t,” he drawled.  
“What do you mean?” This was the exact opposite of what Dean was supposed to say, was supposed to do. Sam could hardly believe what he was hearing.  
“Sam, have you stopped to think, or did you just buy into whatever you heard when you picked up _my_ cellphone? The angels are gunning for Cas-” Dean was walking down the hall as he spoke.  
“Which is why we’ve got to _help_ him,” Sam interrupted.  
“-Which is why we’ve got to make sure this is legit.” Dean continued as though he hadn’t heard him. “And so far, we’ve got nothing. For all we know, this could be a trap. The angels are probably planning to use us as bait to lure Cas in.”  
“Look-” Sam typed rapidly into Dean’s phone, ignoring the way his brother’s brows knit together. “Maple Valley Regional is a real hospital. The call you got was from their front desk. Is that legit enough for you?”  
“Angels aren’t stupid,” Dean said. “A little murder, a few vessels, and they can sound like a real hospital.” He stepped into his room, closing the door and leaving Sam standing outside.  
“So just because it _might_ be a trap, you’d leave Cas?” Sam demanded, scowling at the closed door.  
“Angels aren’t in the minor leagues, Sam, and you’re not up to full speed after the Trials-” Dean reemerged, pulling a t-shirt over his head.  
“I feel _fine_ ,” Sam snarled. “I can handle it.”  
It was like Dean hadn’t even heard him. “-And besides, Cas is a tough guy. He can handle it.”  
“He eats _toothpaste_ ,” Sam said. “He can barely handle regular stuff. And now he’s sick and scared and you want to just _leave him_?”  
“I don’t want us getting our asses handed to us because we ran into a trap Admiral Ackbar could have spotted from Hoth,” Dean shot back. “So, yeah, I’m staying out. And give me my phone back.”  
“I’m going whether or not you come.” Sam thrust the cellphone at his brother.  
“Oh yeah?” Dean stepped back out of Sam’s reach and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket.  
“I’ll hotwire her,” Sam said.  
“You wouldn’t _dare_.” Dean closed his fist over the keys.  
Sam glared.  
Finally, Dean looked away. “I’ll drive,” he said. “And we’re taking precautions. We’re not walking into this trap blind.”

Castiel was lying in some hospital bed, alone and in pain, and Maple Valley Regional Medical Center was six hours away. Sam knew it made sense to pack their stuff before they left. Sam knew it made sense to prepare for the possibility that this was a trap. But Sam also knew that if it had been him lying in that hospital bed, Dean would have been out the door almost before he could put his boots on. And he couldn’t help but feel that Dean was dawdling. He watched him carefully nest a bottle of holy oil into a duffel. Sure, holy oil was valuable, but Dean had always been a stow and go kind of traveler. He’d once blown up a rare dragon-slaying sword because calculating the correct charge of plastic explosives was just too much work.  
“Are you almost done?” Sam heard himself ask.  
Dean didn’t look up from the duffel bag. “Gotta get some holy water,” he muttered.  
“Holy water doesn’t work on angels,” Sam pointed out.  
“Demons could’ve pulled this crap,” Dean retorted.  
“Crowley’s in our basement.”  
“So they want to torture us until we give up his location.”  
Sam could think of several things very obviously wrong with this theory, but the more time they spent arguing, the longer it would take them to get to Cas. So instead he said “We have the angel blades. They kill demons too.”  
Dean couldn’t find a rebuttal to this, though he clearly wanted to. Instead, he hefted the duffel bag onto his shoulder. “I’m driving.”  
  
They were going the speed limit. Sam hadn’t believed it at first, thinking his impatience made it appear that the highway was passing more slowly than it actually was, but when he leaned over to look at the Impala’s speedometer, he realized his intuition had been correct.  
“The speed limit’s sixty here.” Sam had used this line before, but never under these particular circumstances. Still though, his intent was clear, if only from the way the veins in his neck stood out.  
Dean glanced over at him. “I know.”  
Sam looked at the dashboard again. His expression darkened, the human personification of an extreme storm warning. “You’re going fifty-five.”  
“It’s the most fuel efficient speed.” Dean shrugged.  
“You don’t _care_ about fuel efficiency!” Sam exploded. “You buy premium gas with stolen credit cards.”  
“Huh.” Dean stared down the highway. “Never would have guessed it. Salad-eating Sam, mad that I’m trying to save the environment.”  
“I just want to get there,” Sam muttered, then lapsed into sullen silence.  
  
_They had finally caught him. He had run as long and as far as he could, but they had finally caught him. His given-borrowed-taken body had finally failed him, and he couldn’t run anymore._  
_We need to know your name._  
_You already know my name._  
_No, I don’t._  
_The angel is lying. He does not know why. Defiant, he spits his name into the face of his captor: Castiel!_  
_They have made a mistake. They have left him alone. He cannot not see the guard._  
_He tries to stand, but falls back. Something is wrong. Frantic, he looks around the room, all fish-eye angles and garish colors. Nothing goes together, nothing makes sense. But there is a cord- no, a line- leading out of his arm. They are drugging him, weakening him so he can’t escape._  
_His right hand crawls across his body, closes on the traitorous plastic tubing, and pulls._  
_Blood, pain._  
_Why did you do it?_  
_You know why._  
_No, I don’t. Please explain it to me._  
_You know why. Please don’t mock me._  
_He turns his head to the wall and lets the room go dark._  
_Is there anyone you want to know about your situation?_  
_I won’t give names so easily._  
_We’re trying to help you._  
_He laughs. He has heard that before. And there is a rush of heat, and a bad taste, and voices and loud machines…_  
_When are you going to torture me?_  
_No one’s going to hurt you._  
_Lies. More lies. He tears the lying tube from his arm._  
_Is there anyone you want to know about your situation?_  
_You won’t get them, too._  
_Why would we want to hurt you?_  
_You know why. All angels hate me._  
_He wonders if this is the torture, lying here wondering when they will start._  
_His arm aches. They must have forged the needle from an angel blade. He wonders what they did to his midsection._  
_The walls sway in and out, and the floor rocks like a ship at sea, but he is standing. Setting his feet carefully, he walks. His arm drips blood from where he has torn it free._  
_The window is heavy and hard to open, but he does it._  
_The pain is only a low song, and soon he will be free._  
_What are you doing? Get away from there!_  
_Do not be alarmed. I can fly, you know. You can, too. We both can._  
_They have tied him down. He cannot move. He does not know why he is so weak and so heavy. It is so hard to struggle._  
_Is there anyone you want to know about your situation?_  
_Finally, he says yes._  
_Can you tell me their names?_  
_Dean, he says. Dean Winchester._  
  
“You’re here to see Castiel?” the receptionist said. Not Sharon, her shift must have ended hours ago. She looked at her computer screen and frowned. “Do you know his last name?”  
“Whi-” Dean began to say, just as Sam blurted “Winchester.”  
“Winchester,” he repeated.  
Fortunately, the receptionist interpreted the first syllable of whatever name Dean had intended to say as a question.  
“Mr. Winchester refused to tell us his last name,” she said, looking at her screen as she typed into a form. “It took him a few days to believe we didn’t mean him harm. Does Mr. Winchester have insurance? That’s another thing we weren’t able to figure out.”  
“Yes,” Sam said.  
“I don’t suppose you would happen to have a copy of his information?”  
“We do, but I kind of freaked out when the hospital called,” Sam admitted with a sheepish smile. Behind him, Dean rolled his eyes. “I left all the paperwork at home. Could we fax it to you?”  
“Of course. We understand. It’s always stressful to have family in the hospital. I assume Mr. Winchester is family?”  
“Cousin,” Sam and Dean agreed.  
More typing. “Does he have any history of mental health concerns?”  
“Why?” Dean snapped.  
Sam suppressed a sigh of relief. He had no idea what was going on with Dean’s sudden reluctance to interact with Castiel, but at least he still had some inclination to stand up for him. Or maybe it was just his tendency, inherited from John, to take any mention of psychological problems as a personal affront.  
“It is, of course, difficult to evaluate the overall mental health of a seriously ill person, but even as Mr. Winchester’s condition has improved, he has continued to show symptoms of paranoia.” The receptionist was clearly striving for diplomatic phrasing. “Also, he was carrying a sword when the paramedics picked him up.”  
“Cas is weird, but he’s not crazy.” Dean was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “And the sword’s a family heirloom. It has sentimental value.”  
“I see.” The receptionist sounded far from convinced.  
“You gave her our real name?” Dean hissed as they walked away.  
“Cas already did.”  
They stepped into the elevator. The silence grew tense and brooding.  
Dean looked uncomfortable. “Now the angels know it’s us. We could have gone in as med students or something.”  
“I don’t think there are any angels here,” Sam said. What was with Dean’s bizarre certainty that this was a trap? If the angels were trying to corral them, they would have done it by the reception desk, before the brothers had a chance to prepare their weapons. Dean knew that; he’d fought angels as much as Sam. It was almost like- no, it was like- Dean was trying to avoid Cas. Something was wrong. It didn’t make sense. Sam felt a queasy stirring that had nothing to do with the rising elevator. He glanced uncomfortably at Dean, who was reaching for the angel blade tucked inside his jacket.  
“I’m just saying,” he said loudly, “It’s not too late to back out.”  
Sam said nothing. He wasn’t leaving Cas.  
The elevator pinged and and came to a stop. Wordlessly, Sam strode out, walking towards Castiel’s room. Dean was a half a step back, gripping the hilt of the angel blade in his coat.  
  
Sam rapped softly on the frame of the open door. “Hey, Cas,” he said. He kept his voice cheerful, but it took some effort. Castiel looked terrible. Like all successful hunters, Sam was very observant, and right now, he wished he wasn’t. He saw Cas’s pallor, the dark circles under his eyes, the IV leading into his arm and the cannula hooked into the oxygen tank. But he also saw the deep line of bruising stretching from his wrist to his elbow- _he must have pulled out his IV_ \- and the restraint straps still attached to the bedrails. _They tied him up? When he was already panicking?_ Cas looked up at Sam with a tremulous expression that seemed almost hopeful. Sam thought he seemed surprised, too, but that wouldn’t make sense. Probably he was still somewhat confused from whatever drugs they had him on or the vestiges of his earlier delirium.  
Dean elbowed past his brother. “Why’d you call?” he demanded. “You find something important? Metatron? The angel tablet?”  
Castiel’s face crumpled, and he was trembling.  
“Are you still angry with me?”  
“Nothing? Then come on, Sam, we’re leaving.” Dean spun back towards the door, grabbing Sam’s arm.  
Several things happened all at once. Sam felt the last piece of whatever had been so _wrong_ since he woke up in the Impala after the Trials settle into place with a deep _clunk_ that resonated through his chest, and suddenly everything made sense, it was as though a tapestry had been unrolled before him, and a silver tide was rising in him, vast and powerful and _familiar_ , and Sam pushed it down with a silent cry: _No, not this, not now_ and he turned, pulling his arm from Dean’s grasp, then half dragging him from the room: “We need to talk. Outside. Now.”


	4. Chapter 4

“ _What did you DO?_ ” Sam thundered. They were standing in the hall, and he had Dean’s arm in a vice grip.  
“Sam, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dean’s voice was confused yet nonchalant, but his face was pale.  
“You told me Cas left voluntarily.” Sam’s fingers dug into Dean’s arm, but he didn’t care. “But you’re acting like you don’t want to see him, and he thinks you’re mad at him. _What is going on?_ ”  
“I just didn’t want us getting hauled into something you’re not ready to handle.” Dean shrugged, extricating his arm from Sam’s bruising grasp. “And Cas- you said it yourself on the ride up. He’s sick. Probably still delirious. He’s all mixed up in the head. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”  
“Don’t lie to me!” Sam roared. “I know you’ve been lying. Not just about Cas, but about me, ever since the Trials.”  
Dean looked unnerved. “Sam, you’re not thinking, you’re…”  
“Stop. Just stop. And shut up.” Sam took a ragged breath, glaring down at Dean as his nostrils flared. “You… You _did_ something to me. And,” -something else clicked- “You sent Cas away because you thought he’d find out about it.”  
“This doesn’t make sense, Sam. Slow down a minute-”  
“ _No more lies_ ,” Sam insisted. “I _know_ something’s going on. Ever since the Trials-” It was hard to get this out, an admission that something really was terrifyingly wrong. “-Ever since the Trials, I’ve been blacking out. Losing time. When we found Cas, I didn’t see April heal him, I didn’t see you kill her, I just- I just woke up on the floor.  
“Normally, when stuff like that happens, you’re right next to me, freaking out and making sure I’m ok. But this time? This time you acted like everything was fine- like you already _knew_ it was fine.  
“There’s more.” Sam continued before Dean could speak. “After the last Trial, you drove around with me passed out in the front seat for a _day and a half_? Dean, you wouldn’t do that. You’d take me to a hospital, or a psychic, or whip up a batch of dream root, _something_. And those demons Abaddon summoned, _Charlie_ , I don’t remember any of it.” For a moment the fear and betrayal welled up and overwhelmed the anger. “Dean,” Sam begged. “ _What did you do?_ ”  
“Sammy.” Dean’s voice was choked and he rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I couldn’t lose you-”  
The anger surged upwards again. “You couldn’t lose me. See, that’s the thing. Did you ever stop to think about what _I_ might want? What the _world_ might want? We could have sealed Hell! I was ready to go, but you wouldn’t let me. Tell me this, Dean: If the Apocalypse started again tomorrow, would you let me take on Lucifer?”  
“‘Course not,” Dean scoffed. “I know how that all turned out-”  
“So you should decide for me?” Sam demanded. “Just like you decided for Ben and Lisa and Amy? They’re not- I’m not- I’m not a kid, Dean. You’ve got to let people make their own choices. You run around thinking you know what’s best for everyone, but you _don’t_. Being around you anymore, I feel like I’m working with Dad.”  
“Sammy-” Dean pleaded.  
“Don’t call me that,” Sam snarled. “You’d let the world burn rather than let anything happen to me. What’s worse, you don’t even get how messed up that is.”  
A small crowd had formed in the hallway, several nurses and two security guards. One of the guards cautiously approached the arguing brothers.  
“You’re disturbing the patients. If you don’t keep it down, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the guard said, hesitantly sizing the two men up.  
“Back off!” Dean yelled, just as Sam snapped “Not now!”  
The guard, and indeed the entire crowd, stepped back a ways.  
“Sam,” Dean said in an undertone. “I can’t tell you. If I told you what I did, you wouldn’t like it. You’d undo it, and you’d… you’d die.”  
Sam’s fists were clenched, and he was trembling. Finally, he took a deep breath. “If you can answer three questions honestly, and I’m ok with your answers, I promise I’ll think about it before I decide whether or not to undo it.  
“But I need to know either way. You can’t just do things to me- I need to know. I need to decide.”  
Dean closed his eyes for a long moment. “Ok- but- away from them.”  
  
They stood in the hospital parking lot. Dean slumped against the side of the Impala, as though he needed its solidity to stay upright. Sam was still shaking with barely controlled rage.  
“Did you sell your soul?” Sam spat his first question.  
“No,” Dean said. “No demons.”  
“Did you get anyone killed?”  
This time Dean hesitated. “There was an angel… But he was trying to kill…”  
“Ok,” Sam said. “Third: Did you do anything that might restart the Apocalypse or cause the end of the world?”  
Dean stared at him open-mouthed. “No!”  
“Just checking,” Sam said grimly. He let the silence hang for a moment.  
“What did you do?” he finally asked.  
Dean’s voice broke. “Sam… I put an angel in you.”  
  
Castiel could hear them shouting in the hall. Sam and Dean were angry, and it was because of him. He had done the wrong thing again, and now they were angry.  
He couldn’t breathe right. His whole body was shuddering, and he couldn’t make it stop. Something wet was running down his face. Castiel reached up to brush it away. He glanced at his hand as he brought it down to the blankets. Castiel’s irritation with whatever his body was doing now instantly transformed into alarm.  
For the first time, Castiel reached for the call button.  
The nurse hurried into the room. The patient in room 551 had never used his call button. Other nurses had found him in excruciating pain, parched with thirst or terrified of delirium-induced hallucinations, but none of this had inspired him to ask for help. She couldn’t imagine what had happened.  
“What happened? Are you in pain?” the nurse asked.  
Castiel turned towards her. “The aqueous humor is leaking out of my eyes,” he sobbed. “And I’m going to go blind.”  
For an instant, the woman stood frozen, mouth slightly open. “You’re not going blind,” she finally said in a gentle voice. “You’re crying.”  
  
“You what?” The shock, the betrayal, are so absolute that it’s like the words don’t have meaning. Then it hits him in a rush- _that silver wave, oh God no, there’s something inside him, he doesn’t want it, and he can’t remember Lucifer, but he can remember the terror and helplessness, and he wants it_ out. But he promised Dean he would think about it, and as much as he wants to fall to his knees and puke up his guts and the angel and everything _wrong_ inside of him, Sam Winchester isn’t going to be a liar. And, little as he wants to admit it, the thought of dying here and now is almost as frightening as what is inside him. “What did you _do_?” he says again, and it’s not so much a demand as a plea: _You of all people couldn’t have done this to me_.  
But Dean, haltingly, voice breaking, tells Sam what happened, and it takes everything Sam has not to cry or punch him.  
“Get out,” he says, voice toneless. “Get out.”  
Dean takes one look at him and decides not to argue. He steps into the Impala and pulls away.  
And it’s only then that Sam realizes that he’s left standing in some hospital parking lot with an angel coiled up inside his ribs.  
  
He ran. Regardless of whatever he told Dean, running was just as much about staying sane as keeping fit. But some things were too big to run off, and this was one of them.  
Finally, sweaty, panting, jeans chafing against his thighs, Sam stopped. He was in some park. It was essentially deserted at this time of day. Sam sat down on a bench alongside the jogging trail. He rubbed his palms against his thighs, trying to dry them. He cleared his throat. Then, staring out into the blackberry bushes and cottonwoods of the urban greenbelt, Sam spoke.  
“Hey, uh, Ezekiel. I guess you already know how I feel about all of this, but I’m giving you a chance. One chance to explain yourself. This doesn’t mean you can take control or anything, but let’s just… talk.”  
_Sam._ It was weird, sort of hearing a voice echoing in his mind. _I had hoped we would someday meet, but not like this._  
“The meeting’s pretty one sided,” Sam said when he could speak again.  
“Why did you do it?” he demanded. It wasn’t what he had intended to ask, but the question forced its way out.  
_I am not sure how much Dean told you._ Ezekiel sounded cautious. _I try not to listen in. But when he said my name…_  
“You wanted to make sure you weren’t getting your ass kicked to the curb,” Sam said wryly.  
_And to see if Dean had need of me_ , Ezekiel agreed.  
Sam swallowed. He knew Ezekiel had saved Charlie and Cas because Dean had asked, but the thought of him having an angel on a leash and, by extension, sort of having _him_ on a leash, was really creepy.  
_I did not know of your existence until I heard your brother’s prayer_ , Ezekiel said. _He told me- everyone who would listen- what you had done. Trying to protect humankind by sealing the gates of Hell. Very brave, but it should not have been your sacrifice to make. The angels- we- were supposed to protect humanity._  
“So because you haven’t been doing your job right, you can decide what’s good for us? For me?” Sam snapped. Apparently Dean had infected this angel with his philosophy or something.  
Ezekiel gave the psychic equivalent of a sigh. _No, and believe me, no one has made more mistakes than I have. I regret how I did it, but I am not sorry that I saved your life. It didn’t seem right that you should die._  
This was closer to an apology than he’d gotten from Dean, and as close as he was likely to get from an angel. Still, though, something Ezekiel had said was deeply unnerving.  
“What do you mean, no one’s made more mistakes than you?” The last angel to share his headspace had been literally Satan, and it was kind of hard to top that.  
There was a suspiciously long silence. Ezekiel was probably trying to figure out how to put a positive spin on whatever genocide he had committed.  
_I let Lucifer into the Garden_ , Ezekiel said finally.  
“What?” That was not what Sam was expecting to hear. “The Garden, as in the Garden of-?”  
_Eden, yes_ , Ezekiel said heavily. _You must remember that Lucifer had been God’s favorite, and I, stationed on Earth, had not received word of his fall from Grace. So when he told me he wanted to enter the Garden, to improve the human’s lot, I had no reason to disbelieve him. He could be… very persuasive._  
Sam remembered Lucifer’s offers. It was easy to believe Ezekiel.  
_Of course_ , he added bitterly. _The others angels didn’t see it that way. I was never able to make them understand._  
_For me, the Fall was in some ways a good thing. This is the first freedom I have known for thousands of years._  
Unbidden, Sam’s mind flashed to Castiel, saying “I serve Heaven, I don’t serve man” in that monotone he had only just stopped using, Castiel trembling on the floor of Crowley’s lair from the mere memory of Naomi’s torture. If Ezekiel was telling the truth and he had been on lockdown since the Fall of Man, it was a miracle he could even put a sentence together.  
That was, of course, a big if. It was entirely possible that Ezekiel was just lying, saying what was most convenient to keep his vessel. And even if he was telling the truth, Sam didn’t think his pity was enough to overcome his profound sense of disgust and violation.  
“How close am I to being healed?” he asked. If he died now, it would be meaningless. He didn’t want to die, but neither did he want to live this way, feeling like he had a ticking time bomb strapped to his chest.  
_If I left you now, you would not survive beyond a few days. If you were fortunate, you would rapidly become comatose._  
Not what he’d wanted to hear.  
_I think, if I devoted myself solely to that task, I could repair your body within a week._  
“Cas could raise the dead with a touch.”  
_Death is… ordinary. What happened to you is not. If I were merely healing your organs, I would already be done. But the Trials changed you, Sam. Their energy is bound into you, and it is not meant for mortal flesh. It burns; it scars. I have to untangle it before I can heal you, and it is a slow and delicate process._  
_And, I do not have my full strength._  
It wasn’t like there was a guide on recovering from your near-death experience after almost closing the gates of Hell. Sam was going to have to go off of what Ezekiel said, combined with his own best judgment.  
It was not a comforting thought.  
There was one more question. The thought that Ezekiel might have to stay inside him longer made him feel sick, but he had to ask. “Can you help Cas?”  
_I will try._  
  
Sam was pretty sure that the only reason he was able to get back into the hospital was that the shift had changed again.  
Cas, like the receptionist had warned him, was completely out. Apparently he had started having hysterics and the nurse had sedated him. It wasn’t hard to guess what had upset him. Sam’s fists clenched. Another mess Dean had made.  
_Are you ready?_ Ezekiel asked him.  
“Yeah,” Sam said.  
_To heal Castiel, I will need to take control for a moment._  
Sam gritted his teeth. “Fine, but only for a minute.”  
_Very well._  
And then he was falling into a place that was dark and empty, dark and empty except for the tongues of silver fire that burned around him.  
  
Ezekiel stood before the man’s bed. He had been an angel once; even imprisoned he had heard of Castiel. Now, there was little sign of that. A human soul glowed within him. But he could still see, too, the raw wounds where his wings had once been, and the ragged tear where his Grace had once nestled.  
Ezekiel reached out and touched a finger to the man’s forehead.  
  
Sam swayed on his feet, disoriented by the sudden return to his body. Instinctively, he glanced at the time readout displayed on one of the monitors at Cas’s bedside. Only forty-five seconds had passed. Ezekiel had kept his word.  
Only then did he turn his attention to Castiel. Castiel was still lying in the bed, eyes closed, face pale. There was a sort of pinched set to his mouth that seemed to imply that, even through the haze of medications, he still felt pain.  
_Sam._ Ezekiel sounded drained. _I was unable to heal him._  
_As I said before, my strength is… reduced, perhaps more so than I had previously thought. In addition, the wound was caused by a fragment of an angel blade. It actively resists my power._  
_There is more. The wound is one I have tried to heal before._  
“April?”  
_No, it was an old wound then. Besides, April wounded by slashing and stabbing. This is as though an angel blade exploded with great force and one of the fragments struck Castiel._  
It took Sam a moment to figure it out, then the realization hit him full force. Crowley.  
His assassination attempt had nearly been successful.  
  
The sun was low in the sky when Dean returned. Castiel had woken up for a while earlier. He had seemed puzzled not to find himself alone, and it took a lot of persuading for Sam to convince him that neither he nor Dean were angry with him, that he hadn’t done anything wrong. Finally, he sank back into sleep.  
The sunset reflected deep orange off of the walls of the hospital room. Dean stuck his head through the doorway, looking around before speaking.  
“Sam, I’m sorry-”  
“Don’t,” Sam said. “You’re just sorry because I found out.  
“There’s one reason I’m still here.” He stared at the inert form on the bed. “One.”  
“Once he’s better?” Dean asked.  
“I don’t know,” Sam said, and he didn’t. On the one hand, he didn’t trust Dean, didn’t want anything to do with him, could barely stand to be in the same room as him, but on the other, leaving the bunker meant leaving the best store of lore they had ever found. “But I do know this: whatever we had, it’s over. I can’t trust you anymore.”  
Dean was silent. Sam looked up to see him staring at the chair on the opposite side of the bed.  
“Sit down,” he said. “He shouldn’t be alone when he wakes up.”  
Dean did not respond to the note of accusation in the statement.  
The light began to fade.  
Dean gave Sam a sidelong glance, not making eye contact.  
“So… Ezekiel?”  
“He’s still there,” Sam answered. Who knew what Dean would do to find out otherwise. “Only until I can survive without him. And he answers to me now.”  
Dean nodded.  
They sat in silence as night fell.


	5. Chapter 5

“They’re releasing him?” Dean asked. “Already?”  
“I think that they’re releasing him because they have someone to release him to,” Sam said. Castiel had turned up as everything a hospital did not want: unidentified, uninsured and uncooperative. Even though they had brought him a name and an insurance card, first impressions still counted for a lot.  
Sam agreed with the look Dean gave him, although he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t exactly reassuring that Maple Valley had decided to release Cas to them, not after their fight in the hall.  
The nurse’s litany of instructions had the potential to be more reassuring, but mostly it was just overwhelming. Sam typed rapidly into his smartphone, trying to keep up.  
“Relax, I’ve got this,” Dean said quietly.  
Sam scowled and kept typing. He didn’t trust Dean’s version of “got this”.  
The nurse finished her spiel by handing them a thick folder and more prescriptions than Sam had ever seen at one time- more legitimate prescriptions, anyways. Dean’s first aid kit was suspiciously well stocked.  
Sam, bracing himself for Dean’s snarky comment about Cas’s soon-to-be-gained ability to taste the rainbow or whatever, was almost surprised to hear him say a polite thank you to the nurse. Almost. It was just a ploy to regain his trust, like everything the quieter, more respectful Dean of the last two days had done.  
“You ready to get out of here?” Dean asked in a low voice as he pushed Cas’s wheelchair towards the elevator.  
“ _Yes_ ,” Castiel hissed with surprising force.  
Sam wondered if he’d ever really gotten the whole “the nurses aren’t actually trying to kill you” thing. Not that Sam thought he was delirious anymore- looking at him out of the corner of his eye as the elevator descended, determinedly not making eye contact with Dean, he had to admit that he looked way better than he had a few days ago. How much of that was relief at finally getting out of a place that felt like a prison, though, Sam wasn’t sure. Not that his anxiety hadn’t been justified. Nearly every living angel was now on Earth, and, as far as Sam knew, all except for one of them wanted to kill him.  
“Hey, hold on Cas, you don’t want them putting you back in there.” They had reached the parking lot, Cas was trying to climb out of his wheelchair, and Dean was gently pushing him back.  
Cas looked horrorstruck. “They would do that?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at the hospital as though he expected to see an angry horde come charging out.  
“No, they wouldn’t.” Sam glared at Dean. “Dean was telling a joke. He wants you to save your strength.”  
“Oh.” Cas slumped back into his chair, still shooting suspicious looks at the main entrance.  
He seemed more at ease in the car, though the Impala was neither angel nor reaper proof. At least it was sort of demon resistant.  
“Sam, you wanna-?”  
Sam, already in the front seat of the Impala, appeared not to hear him.  
“I’ll, uh, go take this thing back in, then,” Dean said somewhat awkwardly, looking down at the wheelchair.  
Sam and Castiel watched as Dean trudged across the parking lot, pushing the wheelchair. Neither of them spoke.  
The silence in the Impala grew increasingly heavy.  
Castiel was the one to break it.  
“Are-” The word didn’t come out right. Castiel cleared his throat with a small cough, winced, and tried again. “Are you and Dean angry with me?”  
“No.” Even before he looked at Castiel’s face in the rearview mirror, Sam knew that wouldn’t be enough. Sam had already tried to reassure him, was trying to act like everything was normal, but just being around Dean made him shudder from disgust. “There’s a lot of stuff going on. I’m mad at Dean for kicking you out, I think he’s mad at me for finding out about it, and he’s done some other things… things I didn’t want him to do. I don’t really want to talk about it.”  
Cas nodded, frowning thoughtfully.  
Dean hurried up to the car, walking with short, quick steps. He was clutching a white paper bag. “Picked up Cas’s pills,” he explained.  
Sam said nothing.  
Dean set the bag down, dividing the seat between them. “Motel?” he asked.  
Sam nodded, still staring straight ahead.  
It was only half an hour’s drive to the motel, but Sam was glad they hadn’t decided to go any farther. Cas was wilting in the backseat.  
“I’ll get my stuff,” Sam muttered. After Dean had told him what he had done, Sam had been unable to stand the thought of sharing a room with him. But with Cas around, they had to try to act normal.  
Sam stalked down the row of brick colored doors, his big feet hitting the concrete hard enough for him to feel the vibration in his shins, while Dean swung out of the front seat of the Impala, opening the back door for Cas.  
“Why is Sam not with you?” Castiel asked, leaning against the car.  
“He got used to having his own space at the bunker. But with you around, it’s gonna be like old times again.” Dean hoped his smile was convincing.

Cas huddled into a corner of the motel room and just stood there, looking more hangdog than anyone Dean had ever seen. It was so pathetic, it was irritating. What, was Cas expecting him to hit him or something? And if that was where Dean’s mind went, Sam would be accusing him of more supposed wrongdoing the instant he got back into the room.  
“Cas, go lie down.” It was an order, but Dean softened it. “You’ll feel better.”  
Obediently, Cas shuffled to the nearest mattress.  
Dean rolled his eyes. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off. Whatever. It wasn’t like the comforter had seen the inside of a washing machine anytime this decade.  
The warped door groaned as Sam pushed it inwards.  
“Hey, Cas.” He didn’t bother greeting Dean.  
Except for the sound of Castiel’s breathing, the room was silent. The tension hung low and heavy. Sam had once beaten a nine hundred year old warlock in a game of poker, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding his emotions now.  
Dean dug in his pockets for his keys. “How about you go rustle up some grub? I’m starving.”  
Sam caught the keys automatically. He glanced over his shoulder at Cas, then glared back at Dean. Dean gave him a _what-the-hell_ look and held his hands out palms-up at his sides. It wasn’t like he was going to kick Cas out while Sam went to get burgers. Besides, even if he did, he probably wouldn’t make it to the end of the parking lot before Sam got back. Sam gave him one final glare before turning to the door.  
It was the longest conversation they’d had in days.  
Dean walked to the larger of the motel’s two windows, the one that faced away from the parking lot and out onto a scrubby tangle of blackberry and juniper, and stared blankly into the distance as he heard the Impala pull onto the road. Once again, there was only the sound of Castiel’s rapid, shallow breathing. After a while, Dean turned around and, for the first time since he had arrived, really looked at Cas.  
It was a cloudy day and no one had bothered to turn on the lights, so the motel wasn’t particularly well-lit, but even in the dim room, he could see that his face was pale and covered with a sheen of sweat.  
“How are you feeling, Cas?”  
There was a silence that lasted long enough for Dean to begin think that another person had decided to give him the silent treatment before Castiel said “Fine.”  
“You don’t always have to say that, you know.” Dean sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress creaked. Castiel cringed, though whether it was due to the sound, or being slightly jostled, or Dean’s proximity, he couldn’t tell. “You look like crap.”  
“Sorry,” Cas muttered, turning his head away. His hair was dark with sweat and plastered to the edges of his face.  
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. Kicking you out of the bunker like that- it’s one of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made. I thought I had to, but I was wrong. I screwed up, Cas, and I’m sorry.”  
Cas didn’t answer, but at least he was sort of looking at Dean now. It was the best he could hope for, and more than he had any right to expect. There were things he’d do over again if he had the chance. Do whatever it took to save Sam, sure, but stash Cas in a motel room or some unused portion of the bunker. He hadn’t meant to hurt him, not like this.  
Unable to keep his hands still, Dean grabbed the bag he’d gotten from the pharmacy and began pulling out pill bottles. “Bet they gave you the good stuff,” he said. “I’ll get you some water.”  
Cas tucked his chin in an approximation of a nod, and when Dean returned with the promised glass of water, he allowed him to rearrange the pillows, supporting him in a sitting position.  
Dean sorted through the orange bottles, looking for pain pills. Whatever they’d given Cas this morning was definitely wearing off. Up to two every four hours, the label said. If these had been Dean’s meds, he would have taken the label as a starting point and probably chased them with some whiskey. But with Cas, he was going to play by the rules. One less thing for Sam to be pissed about.  
“Here, swallow these,” he said, offering Cas the pills and the water.  
Castiel gingerly plucked one of the tablets from his hand, placed it on his tongue and took a large gulp of water, bobbing his head like some weird bird as he swallowed.  
Then he frowned and repeated the procedure.  
On his third attempt, Dean could hear strangled gulping noises. Between that and the way his face was twisted up, he wasn’t sure if Cas was about to choke or throw up. Instead, he drained the rest of the glass of water, a look of intense disgust on his face. Finally, cup empty, he came up for air, trembling and panting as he slumped away from the pillows. “Is- Is it- necessary to take- more than one?,” he asked miserably.  
Dean frowned. “Cas, do you, uh, know how to take pills?”  
“Swallowing them is… difficult.”  
“Don’t fight it like that. Just _swallow_.”  
Cas scowled. “I can’t.”  
“The nurses never noticed this?”  
“They always- gave me the pills- and left.” Cas’s head drooped to his chest and his shoulders slumped. His battle with the tablet had clearly exhausted him.  
Dean felt a surge of anger, first with Maple Valley and then with himself. No, think of something else, Cas was already skittish enough without Dean snapping at him for something that wasn’t even his damn fault. Dean looked down at the remaining white pill and remembered tossing Cas an entire economy-sized bottle of aspirin to nurse a liquor-store-sized hangover. If one little Vicodin was giving him this much trouble, how the hell had he handled an entire bottle of much larger pills?  
“Cas, remember when you drank a liquor store?”  
Cas’s expression told him yes, he did, although he’d rather not.  
“What’d you do with all that aspirin I gave you?”  
“I took it.”  
Dean waved his hand, asking for clarification.  
“You did not tell me that pills are swallowed whole.”  
Dean winced. “You _chewed_ them? That had to be _nasty_ , Cas.”  
“It was unpleasant, yes,” Castiel agreed stiffly, and for a minute he sounded so much like the old Cas that Dean almost forgot that he’d lost his wings and was sitting crumpled on a mattress with a hole in his gut. But Cas was staring down at the pill in Dean’s hand with trepidation that had never shadowed his face when he had been invulnerable to everything except angel blades and Enochian spells.  
“You gotta take ‘em both,” Dean said. “You’ll feel better once they kick in.”  
The second pill was worse than the first. This time, Dean thought Cas actually was going on to hurl when he doubled over, chest pressed to his knees. Then he realized he was struggling to swallow, fighting the instinct that told him to spit the pill and mouthful of water all over the bed. Dean wrapped his arm around Cas and pulled him against his chest, holding him upright and forcing his head back. Cas spasmed, driving his shoulder blade into his chest. But after several choking, borderline convulsive attempts, he got the pill down. Cas slumped against Dean, his head resting on his arm.  
Dean could feel Cas’s heart jackhammering against his ribs. Eventually, he raised his head slightly. Dean followed his gaze. He was looking at the nightstand.  
There were seven orange prescription bottles.  
The antibiotics were huge. Horse pills, John would’ve called them.  
  
By the time they finished, Castiel was trembling. Dean eased him back onto the bed. His shirt was soaked with sweat. Sam had bought him some new ones. Cas had only had the one maroon tee, and it was beyond repair. However, Dean had no idea where Sam had put the new clothes. Normally, he’d just dig through his stuff until he found them, but under present circumstances, that would have been indicative of more of a death wish than he actually had.  
Instead, he pulled a green shirt out of his own duffel. Castiel, limp with exhaustion, offered neither help nor resistance as Dean pulled his shirt off and tugged the clean one over his head. It was like dressing a rag doll.  
Dean settled Cas back on the bed in what he hoped was a comfortable- or, at least, minimally uncomfortable- position.  
Knowing their luck, he’d probably missed half the prescriptions and they’d have to go through all of this again. Dean reached into the pharmacy bag. Just the standard do-not-drive-do-not-operate-heavy-machinery warnings and a thermometer.  
The nurse who’d released Cas had been insistent that they check his temperature. It would probably go up immediately after he was released, she’d said- something to do with a rebound while his system adjusted to oral antibiotics after the stronger intravenous version- but if it got over 101.5, they were supposed to take him to a doctor immediately.  
Castiel glared at the thermometer like it had personally offended him.  
“Come on, Cas. Don’t fight me on this, man,” Dean begged.  
For a moment Castiel studied him with something inscrutable on his pain-wracked face, then, with childlike obedience, he opened his mouth.  
  
The thermometer registered with a series of high-pitched beeps Dean could hardly hear. Why everything from microwaves to cell phones had to make sounds barely in the range of human hearing, he didn’t know.  
101.3. No wonder Cas looked miserable.  
Dean stood up, causing the mattress to groan in protest. Castiel’s gaze flickered up, then back down to the bedspread, his fingers picking at a loose thread in the decorative quilting stitched into the floral pattern. The floor also complained as Dean stepped on it. Cautiously, Castiel looked up again. Dean's back was towards him. He was pulling at the thread harder now, not really aware of what his hands were doing. His eyes traced over Dean eagerly, nervously, afraid he might turn around at any moment: the familiar blond hair, the loose flannel shirt, the dark jeans wrapped tightly around his muscular form.  
Dean had crossed most of the small room. Castiel's eyes were still locked on him.  
There was a plastic bowl of fake fruit on the desk. Someone’s idea of decor. Dean grabbed it and dumped it out. Plastic apples and pears rolled across the chipped wood.  
Dean carried the bowl to the bathroom. Castiel’s gaze still followed him. He rinsed the dust out of the bowl, then filled it with cool water. There were no washcloths. Typical of the places they stayed in. There was a hand towel, though. It would work.  
Dean set the bowl on the nightstand and sat down on the edge of the bed again. This time, Cas didn’t flinch.  
He looked a bit uncertain as Dean dipped the towel into the water, though.  
“This’ll cool you off,” he explained. “You’ll feel better.”  
Dean gently drew the cloth across Castiel’s forehead, dipped the towel into the water again, wrung it out and again swept it across his brow.  
Gradually, Cas’s face relaxed and his breathing evened out.  
That was how Sam found them when he returned with burgers.  
  
“I brought lunch.” Sam’s voice was so flat that it bordered on robotic.  
“Great, I’m starved.” Dean hastily dropped the towel into the basin, splashing water onto the nightstand.  
Sam scowled, but handed him a burger.  
Dean peeled back the foil, took a bite, and frowned.  
“Sorry. They were out of bacon,” Sam said in that same flat voice.  
“Uh-huh,” Dean said. He set aside the unsatisfactory thing and pulled the third burger out of the bag.  
“That’s Cas’s.” Now there was a hint of emotion in Sam’s voice: specifically, irritation.  
“I know.” Dean waved the burger at Castiel. “Hey, Cas.”  
“I don’t want it,” Castiel said.  
“Come on.” Dean was leaning over Cas now, still brandishing the hamburger.  
“It smells bad.” Castiel turned his head, burying his face in the pillow.  
Dean wasn’t going to push his luck.  
“Ok, but you should at least drink something.” He picked up a milkshake from the cardboard tray and stuck it in Cas’s face, practically poking him with the straw. “Just five sips, come on.” He nudged him a few times with the straw for emphasis.  
Castiel turned his head back to Dean and took five deliberate sips of the milkshake before turning away again.  
The cup was still more than half full.  
He’d take what he could get.  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Osito for supplying the last line of this chapter!

He’d take what he could get. If Dean Winchester had ever bothered to articulate a life philosophy, that might have been a major part of it. Discount beer that smelled more like skunk than booze, motels that seemed to charge a dollar per roach; he’d deal. Sleeping on a camp bed in a feverish former angel’s room instead of on his own memory foam mattress, fine. But he had limits. And he was bumping up against them now.  
“Sam, man, I get that you’re pissed, but it’s been _days_.” It had taken some ingenuity even to have this conversation. Since they had returned to the bunker, Sam had been taking advantage of its size to avoid Dean, though he occasionally checked up on Castiel, an action which Dean understood as a deliberate demonstration of his lack of faith in his brother. “I know you don’t like what I did, but I saved your _life_.”  
Dean had gone up to the kitchen when he had heard footsteps. Sam had just gotten back from his morning run and was standing over the stove, poking at some half-cooked scrambled eggs with a spatula. He didn’t bother turning away from the stove and just kept prodding at the eggs like they would burn if he let them rest for a moment.  
“I’m not going to thank you, Dean. What you did, you did for yourself.”  
Dean scowled. It was just like Sam to be so stubborn. Sure, he’d screwed up, but when screwing up meant saving your brother’s _life_ , it couldn’t be all bad. “You’re glad to be alive, aren’t you?”  
Now Sam turned partly away from the stove, glaring at him from under that mop of dark hair. “You don’t get it, do you? You really don’t get it.”  
Dean had to admit that he was pretty confused.  
Sam wheeled on him, turning his back on the stove entirely. “You’re worse than Becky!”  
It took Dean a moment. “Becky Rosen? But she’s-”  
“A freak, I know. But you- you’re supposed to be someone I can trust!” Sam turned away abruptly, grabbing the fry pan off of the stove and dumping the eggs onto a plate. “Here-” He shoved the plate at Dean. “I don’t want them.”  
Dean stood in the kitchen with the plate of scrambled eggs in his hands as he listened to Sam stomp out and up the long flight of stairs that connected the bunker to the outside world.  
He didn’t really want the eggs either.  
Maybe Cas would eat them.  
  
Cas was another story altogether. In some ways, he was a better patient than Sam had ever been- no stubbornly insisting that he was fine while he crashed into tables- but mostly he was freaking inscrutable. Was he in pain? Maybe, if there was a certain set to his mouth and he was going pale. Was his fever going up? Maybe, if his breathing had turned into rapid panting. But it was all guesswork on Dean’s part, because he never complained. When he’d bitched about this, Sam had pointed out that being a soldier for thousands of years probably inclined one towards stoicism.  
Dean was willing to admit that Sam had a point, but he was pretty sure it was more than that. Taking pills had gotten easier for Cas, but not much easier. The antibiotics were still nightmarish.  
Then there was the whole problem of trying to make him eat pretty much anything. Dean hadn’t been able to figure out any pattern in what he would or wouldn’t eat. He just took what victories he could: half a piece of toast, three bites of sandwich, an entire four ounce container of apple juice.  
Maybe, Dean thought with something approaching optimism, Cas would eat five bites. That had to be almost a whole egg.  
  
Sam sat on the hood of the Impala, his long legs sticking out awkwardly. Part of him wanted to run, but he’d already put in a good four miles this morning, and besides, his argument with Dean had left him with a sense of exhaustion that sank deeper than his bones.  
But even running wouldn’t be an escape. Running would only be a temporary distraction from the ultimately unavoidable truth: Sam Winchester had very few options. He thought longingly of those happy months with Amelia and Riot, but no, he couldn’t have that again, for so many reasons. For the first time he wondered if that year had been just the same as going to Stanford, if, when he looked at Dean and no longer recognized him, or rather saw more of his father than his brother staring back, something had told him to flee and he had taken the first chance he got to make a clean break.  
But he couldn’t do that now. If Dean was right about one thing, it was that abandoning Kevin was one of the lowest things he had ever done. And they didn’t just have Kevin now. Sam couldn’t imagine entrusting his brother with a half-feral barn cat, let alone an orphaned teenage prophet and a vulnerable former angel.  
No, he’d have to keep on hunting, though the thought of working with Dean, of sharing a roof with him, made his stomach churn in a way that made him glad he hadn’t eaten those eggs. But he couldn’t stand the idea of walking away from the bunker, either. It was the best resource they’d found in a lifetime of hunting.  
He wished Bobby had lived long enough to see it, though he was glad the old hunter had no idea what a mess they had become.  
Even the car he was sitting on wasn’t his. He still seethed with anger thinking of the way Dean had nonchalantly dangled the keys in front of him when he had demanded that they go to Castiel. _You go where I want you to, Sammy._  
The knowledge that he could hotwire the Impala or pretty much any car in the time it took him to tie his shoelaces was paltry comfort. There was a big difference between having to hitch a ride into town so he could ruin some poor schmuck’s day and just being treated like a semi-competent adult.  
And forget about the car, his _body_ wasn't really his. He’d only gone on his morning jog with the blessing of his uninvited angel. It wasn’t like Ezekiel had ever gone for the hostile takeover, but the fact that he could have, combined with the revelation that Dean had, on several occasions, asked a relative stranger from a species that had almost invariably wanted to kill them, to take control of his little brother, made him want to reject him then and there.  
But Sam didn’t want to die slumped over on the Impala on a desolate stretch of Kansas road, so he stared at the patch of forest growing near the bunker and forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply until the urge passed.  
The leaves on the trees were the vivid, intense green of new growth. The morning air was cool. It was still a toss-up whether they would have frost or dew, but this morning liquid orbs glimmered in the grass.  
“Zeke?”  
 _Yes, Sam?_  
It was strange, how he had lapsed into calling Ezekiel by the nickname. Maybe sharing a body encouraged familiarity, whether you wanted it to or not.  
“How are things, you know, going?”  
This had become a daily ritual for them. Every morning, Sam asked Ezekiel about his efforts to repair his body. And every morning, Ezekiel answered with a list of organs whose function he had restored.  
 _Since we last spoke, I have healed your pancreas and your liver. Your liver was especially complex; the energy of the Trials was deeply entangled with it, and had produced many burns and scars. Perhaps it attempted to remove the Trials’ energy from your body. Or maybe the third Trial, with its emphasis on purification, attacked it deliberately. Although your liver is not yet fully healed, it is at least largely functional._  
“Thanks, Ezekiel. I’m sure it’s better than whatever Dean’s got.”  
 _I was unaware that Dean had also endeavored to complete the Trials?_ Ezekiel sounded slightly alarmed.  
Sam fought the temptation to roll his eyes. Angels were, in general, painfully literal. “No, he’s an alcoholic.”  
 _I have never seen him consume alcohol._  
Sam thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, he’s really cut back since Purgatory.”

Castiel was restless. In most ways, this was a good thing. Specifically, he’d spent so much time lying in bed with his eyes closed that Dean had begun edging toward seriously freaked out. Seeing him sitting up, looking around the room with actual attention and interest, hearing him talk beyond strictly necessary monosyllables- all of that was really reassuring. But even though Cas hadn’t complained once, Dean could tell that he was getting bored, and that meant it was just a matter of time until he did something stupid that exhausted his meager strength and left himself hurting and made Sam even angrier. And Dean was not a certified angel babysitter. Fortunately, he knew the world’s greatest babysitter: TV.  
Until recently, they hadn’t even had a TV, but after the whole debacle with Charlie, Dean had gone out and bought the biggest flat screen he could cram into the Impala. It wasn’t like watching _Game of Thrones_ on a big screen instead of Sam’s laptop would have stopped the Wicked Witch from getting out or anything, but at least they would have been a little more normal up till the point when grody grey cocoons started hatching out pretty chicks with absolutely no interest in him or any other male. Besides, Dean had made it a personal mission to ensure that the bunker, which was supposed to be their permanent home, was better equipped than any motel they had ever stayed in.  
He’d even found a couch in some musty Men of Letters breakroom and coaxed Sam into helping haul the enormous green thing into their newly appointed “Entertainment Center”. Sam had scoffed at the whole thing, but Dean had still entertained daydreams of him and Sam settling down to watch a Star Trek marathon or something.  
Not that Sam wanted anything to do with him now.  
At least the room was finally getting some use.  
“Hey Cas, what do you wanna watch?”  
Castiel, curled up at the far end of the couch, shrugged, then cringed, scrunching himself into a tighter ball.  
Dean felt a pang of sympathy. There was nothing like an injury to make you realize how every part of your body was connected. When he’d first broken ribs, he hadn’t been surprised that it hurt to breathe, but it had caught him off guard when the same thing happened after he dislocated his shoulder.  
It didn’t matter that Cas had no idea what he wanted to watch; they’d find something. Whatever magic allowed them to have cell service underground also seemed to affect the TV, giving them cable, satellite and even pay-per-view, minus the pay part. Not that Dean was going to go for the last option. Porn was definitely for solitaire viewing only.  
Dean began flicking through the channels.  
“ _She’s devastatingly beautiful_ ,” a familiar voice said. Dr. Sexy leaned over the gurney, studying the unconscious woman with dark hair and heavy mascara.  
“ _And devastatingly injured_ ,” Nurse Christine said disapprovingly. Like all of the female nurses, except for Anna Beth and Anne Marie, who were lesbians, Nurse Christine was in love with Dr. Sexy.  
“ _This week on Dr. Sexy, can the studly surgeon save heiress Veronica Kent from both a hit and run car accident and from a broken heart?_ ” the voice-over boomed as a montage rolled across the screen, showing Dr. Sexy in suspiciously tight scrubs, Dr. Sexy leaning over a voluptuous woman, and Nurse Christine glaring jealously, before sweeping to the main doors of the hospital. “ _Find your answers this week at Grenville General with Dr. Sexy!_ ”  
Dean glanced over at Cas. He hadn’t said anything, but his mouth was set in a narrow line and his hand was closed into a fist, wadding up the red plaid blanket he was wrapped in. Not Dr. Sexy, then.  
“ _The injured water buffalo lags behind the herd, seeking a quiet place_ -”  
Nature documentary. Boring. No way.  
“ _Hydrangeas are a very durable dried flower, so if you take care of them properly, your spring centerpiece might last several years._ ”  
Martha Stewart. Even worse.  
Dean clicked the remote.  
A raucous melody bounded out of the television set.  
Castiel, who had lost interest in the channel surfing, now turned towards the television, eyes lit up in what was, for him, the equivalent of a wide smile. Looney Tunes it was, then.  
Dean was glad that he had a beer.

Wile E. Coyote was sawing a circle out of the center of the bridge, and Cas was halfway across the couch.  
Dean could have sworn that he had been pressed against the far end.  
It must be easier to see from the middle.  
The Road Runner was speeding across the screen with a triumphant “Beep beep!” and Castiel was right next to him. Or, more accurately, Castiel was curled up with his knees pressed into his ribs and his chin digging into his shoulder.  
If he had been a girl, it would have been fine, pointy chin and bony kneecaps aside. But Cas wasn’t a girl, and there were only two things stopping Dean from clobbering him: first, he would have felt like a total ass, and second, if he punched Cas, Sam would instantly go from brooding thunderclouds to full-on attempted murder. Dean didn’t want to find out how much better Sam had gotten at fighting since their last brawl.  
“You’re warm,” Castiel said contentedly, his breath gusting over Dean’s ear.  
Dean grunted. It was the most civil thing he could say. Everything about this situation was just _wrong_ , even Cas calling him warm. Castiel was like a gigantic cat- a cat that had been sitting on the radiator in the afternoon sun.  
Wile E. Coyote had just squashed himself flat beneath a spring-loaded rock, and Castiel’s head was on his shoulder. His breathing was slow and regular; he was asleep. Gradually, his head rolled down Dean’s body, slipping from his shoulder to his chest.  
Dean squirmed, trying to push Cas to his original position. It worked, for about thirty seconds. Then he resumed his gradual slide, ultimately coming to rest face down in Dean’s lap.  
Dean froze. This was a _definite_ incursion of the Neutral Zone.  
Moving a millimeter at a time, he tried to extract himself, but Cas whimpered and clutched at the loose denim folded by his knee. He was stuck.  
 _Coyote and Roadrunner_ became _Tom and Jerry_ , which became _Bugs Bunny_. Castiel was still asleep. His mouth was apparently open, as a patch of damp was soaking through to Dean’s thigh. Of course his pants had been pretty much clean; he’d only worn them for four days. Dean couldn’t reach his beer, and his right foot had gone numb. He had tried to grab the remote, but it would have taken a good deal of contorting, and the whole situation, already awkward, was about three inches away from becoming flatout humiliating. Dean kept his eyes glued to the screen and tried very hard to stay still and concentrate only on the television.  
In fact, he was concentrating so hard on ignoring everything except the TV that he didn’t hear the squeak of the worn-out floorboard as Sam stuck his head into the room. Dean managed not to startle, but swung his head frantically towards the sound of his brother’s voice, hoping against hope that Sam hadn’t noticed, and bracing himself for the inevitable round of teasing. But, no, Sam, determined to acknowledge Dean as minimally as possible, was staring at the back of the couch, a good twelve inches away from him.  
“I got the low-sodium chicken noodle you thought Cas might eat. It’s in the cupboard over-” Sam stopped, his eyes widening as he took in the tableau on the sofa.  
Dean made a series of frantic gestures, desperately begging Sam to _shut up shut up shut up GO AWAY_.  
The smile that spread across Sam’s face was practically malevolent.  
He reached for his cell phone.  
“You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” Dean hissed.  
“You know,” Sam said cheerfully, “I think Kevin could really use an update on how everything’s going over here.”  
“Don’t even _think_ about it.”  
Sam was all the way across the room, but Dean still reached out his hand, desperately trying to separate him from the phone.  
Sam raised his phone and pressed the shutter button. “Boop.”  



	7. Chapter 7

“Hey, Zeke.” Sam was standing in the patch of grass that grew between the bunker and the woods. He didn’t like to be inside when he spoke to Ezekiel; even though he knew it was unlikely, given the bunker’s size, he worried Dean might be listening in. “How’s it going?”  
_I estimate it will take two or three more days to adequately heal your body._  
“Oh. Ok.” Sam had to admit that he was a little disappointed. Ezekiel had been working so hard that he thought he might be able to leave early. “What have you been able to do since yesterday?”  
_I- I have healed your... heart and your... liver._  
“Ezekiel.” Sam suddenly felt very cold. It had happened. In a way, it was hard to blame him, but he couldn’t live like that. “You already repaired my liver. And my heart was one of the first things you fixed, before I even knew you were there.”  
_But I did not fully restore your liver. There was still work to be done. And the human heart is a very complex thing, with electrical as well as mechanical components._  
“Stop. Don’t lie. You’ll just make it worse,” Sam said wearily. “You’ve healed me enough to live without you, haven’t you?”  
_There is so much more that could be done._  
“I could live without you, couldn’t I?”  
Ezekiel’s silence quickly became disconcerting, and Sam braced himself, preparing to fight for his body against someone he had begun to regard almost as a friend.  
_You would survive without my presence. You would be weakened, but you would survive._  
Sam sighed. It wasn’t the worst possible outcome- he wouldn’t have to fight Zeke- but still, he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Ezekiel. We’ve made this work as long as we could, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I can’t do this if I can’t trust you. I know you don’t have many friends, I know you’re scared, but I can’t just go on wondering if you’re lying to me, or are going to try to take control again.”  
_Sam, please-_  
“I’m grateful, Ezekiel, I really am. Here-” he recited his cell phone number and Dean’s “-call us if you need anything. We’ll help you.  
“But you have to leave. I’m sorry.”  
Sam’s head tilted back, and a silver cloud billowed from his mouth. For a moment he watched it, glimmering against the grey sky, before the wind seemed to sweep it away, and it vanished.  
Sam had expected to feel free without Ezekiel. Instead, he just felt very tired and very heavy.  
Sam turned and slowly trudged back to the bunker.  
  
“Up and at ‘em, Cas!” Dean pounded on the door. Cas had been doing well enough for him to abandon the prehistoric camping bed in exchange for his own luxurious mattress. It had been great. The memory foam had remembered him, and he felt more rested than he had for a long time.  
The unlatched door swung ajar, and Castiel barely raised his head from the pillow to squint crossly at Dean.  
“Not feeling too hot, huh?” Dean said in a more reserved tone.  
“No, I am- too warm,” Castiel panted, sinking back into the bed.  
Dean rolled his eyes. Cas had never met a metaphor he couldn’t mangle. Still, he studied him more closely. His complexion was greyish rather than flushed, but there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead. He could be running a fever- a higher fever, Dean corrected himself. Castiel’s temperature had refused to sink below 100. Most likely, though, he was just in more pain than he was used to- it had been almost twelve hours since he last took anything.  
“You’ll feel better once you get some pills in you,” Dean said heartily.  
Cas looked doubtful.  
“First thing’s first, though.” Dean picked up the thermometer from the nightstand.  
Castiel groaned and sank deeper into the pillows, as though trying to bury himself in them.  
“Seriously, Cas?” Dean asked wryly.  
Cas breathed fast and shallow for several seconds before responding. It was more like panting than natural breathing, as though he were fighting to master his pain, and even then, he merely opened his mouth enough to receive the thermometer.  
Dean sat down on the edge of the bed and rested his hand against Castiel’s shoulder. It was bony and hot, and the t-shirt which covered it was thin. Normally, Dean would consider such a gesture too intimate and decidedly awkward, but this was Cas, Cas who had no concept of personal boundaries and seemed almost on the verge of panic. Dean’s hand lingered a few moments after the thermometer had beeped- he hadn’t heard that tinny, high pitched sound; he only knew it had registered when he noticed its blinking light.  
He frowned as he read the miniscule screen: 102.3. Almost a whole degree higher than it should be.  
“Guess you are too warm,” he said.  
He paused, but there was no irritable retort from Castiel.  
“I’m gonna have to call a doctor, schedule you an appointment at the clinic.”  
Again he paused, waiting for some sign of discontent, a scowl or a sigh or insistence that no, that wouldn’t be necessary, but Cas just lay there, still and quiet.  
A faint stirring of unease prickled Dean’s scalp. He brushed it aside. Cas was just finally learning how to act like a normal human being, that was all. No sense in borrowing trouble when he had plenty of problems of his own.  
“A shower will cool you down,” Dean said with a heartiness he didn’t feel. He turned to the small closet opposite the bed. “I’ll get you some clean clothes.”  
There wasn’t much in the closet, but- Dean frowned again- some of the flannel shirts were definitely familiar. But that, he told himself, was something to deal with later.  
Castiel did not follow Dean with his eyes, nor did he lift his head from the pillow. Instead, he stared blankly at the wall.  
“You need to get up to get in the shower,” Dean coaxed as he turned around holding a pair of sweatpants and a navy blue t-shirt.  
Agonizingly slowly, Castiel raised his head. Bracing his hands against the mattress and trembling, he forced himself upright. He stood swaying for a few seconds before he took an unsteady step.  
Shit. Suddenly, it was very easy to imagine Cas keeling over in the shower. An armful of wet, naked, unconscious former angel was not something Dean wanted to deal with. “How about you don’t lock the door while you’re in there? And if you feel dizzy, or like you’re about to pass out or something, just sit down and yell for me, ok?”  
Under almost any other circumstances, hanging out by the shower room while someone else was using it would have been weird and creepy, but the universal rules of masculine conduct were less important than making sure Cas didn’t manage to concuss himself or drown in a quarter inch of water.  
Anyways, sometime after the second Trial, he’d developed the habit of hovering outside of locked doors in motels and the bunker, waiting anxiously for a sasquatch-sized crash. Trying not to think of that whole fiasco, and his role in it, and how it had led to their current mess, Dean dug his cell phone out of his pocket and called the clinic over in Mankato.  
He heard the shower shut off as he was confirming that Cas’s appointment was at one, and a few minutes later, Cas emerged from the shower room.  
He looked worse than he had when he got up. The greyish cast to his face was more pronounced, and he pulled himself along the wall as he staggered back to his room.  
The knell of concern sounded again, this time louder.  
“Hey, Cas, can I check your temperature again?” Dean was unable to keep his voice completely casual.  
Castiel paused in his agonizing progress, one shoulder against the wall, and shook his head, scowling. “It- hurts- my- mouth.” Each word was formed with obvious effort, and in the pauses between syllables, he panted for breath.  
“That wasn’t really a question, Cas,” Dean said.

Cas sank into the bed, exhausted, and lay there, chest heaving. Dean gave him a minute to catch his breath before he presented the apparently odious thermometer.  
There were no more complaints from Cas, not even a scowl; in fact, he barely seemed to notice Dean coaxing the rubber-coated stem under his tongue.  
This time, Dean, listening intently, heard thermometer register. When he removed it from Cas’s mouth, he frowned at the small screen, then shook it vigorously.  
It was a reflexive action; he didn’t really expect it to change the reading, and when he stopped shaking it, it still read 103.1.  
Almost a full degree in half an hour. Not good.  
“Forget that afternoon appointment. I’m taking you to the doctor’s now.” _And they’re going to make space in their schedule even if it means cancelling on someone else._  
No response from Castiel.  
“I’m going to go unlock the car, then I’ll come back down for you,” Dean continued. “Just- rest. Stay here.”

Dean cut through the library on his way to stairs. Preoccupied, he did not at first notice his brother.  
Sam was seated at one of the long tables. As usual, he was surrounded by books, though the pile was less organized than usual. A dog-eared copy of _The Wizard of Oz_ was open before him, but Dean could tell at a glance that he wasn’t really reading it. He turned the pages at seeming random, and mostly his gaze seemed focused on… nothing.  
Normally, Dean would have asked him what was going on, but Sam had made it quite clear he wanted none of that.  
Dean’s keys clattered as he pulled them from his pocket, and Sam was suddenly looking straight at him.  
“What are _you_ doing here?” Sam’s lip curled in disdain.  
“Going to turn the car around. Cas isn’t doing too good; I’m gonna take him to the clinic up in Mankato.” He held up the keys as a pathetic attempt to prove his intentions.  
“What’s wrong with Cas?” Sam suddenly sounded concerned.  
“His fever’s up- past the point that that nurse said was ok. I had him take a shower-” Dean was still trying to convince Sam he wasn’t some kind of monster who only looked out for himself “-but it did _nothing_. And, he just doesn’t look good.” He said the last part more quietly. It was as much of his unease as he could articulate.  
A sharp crease formed above Sam’s nose as he frowned. “Have you packed his stuff?”  
“I’m taking him to the clinic, not the the hospital.”  
“Yeah, but if he’s slipping that fast, they might want to admit him,” Sam responded, still frowning.  
“ _You_ tell him that,” Dean said. “He freaks anytime I mention hospitals. I couldn’t even watch _Dr. Sexy_ with him.”  
Sam’s eyebrows quirked.  
“Shut up.” Dean preempted any smart remarks Sam might be thinking of making.

In the end, Sam stuffed some of Cas’s clothes into a bag, and Dean tried to get him to take some pills, and neither of them mentioned the possibility of the hospital.  
“These’ll tide you over til we get you to the clinic,” Dean encouraged. “They’ll take the edge off until the doctors get you the strong stuff.”  
As they had descended to Cas’s room, Sam had advised him that, if he could only get Cas to take one kind of medication, he should go for an anti-pyrexic.  
“What?” Dean had asked, wondering if Sam had accidentally veered off into Latin.  
“Drugs that lower fever,” Sam had said scathingly.  
Dean had bristled inwardly, not just at Sam’s condescension, but at the implication he wouldn’t be able to get Cas to take his medicine. Cas’s inability to swallow pills normally felt like another way he’d failed- if he’d taught Sam to do it, why couldn’t he teach Cas? As such, he’d refrained from mentioning it to his brother, but Sam had figured it out shortly after they got home, when the large antibiotic pills had actually resulted in barfing.  
And now Cas was refusing to take a single pill, and he wasn’t even looking at them.  
“C’mon, Cas.” He’d run out of encouragements and was down to begging.  
Cas still stared at the ceiling, his eyes glazed. “No- too- hard.” Each word was pronounced with obvious effort, and after each, his chest heaved, drawing a breath that might have been a little deeper than those he managed while lying silently.  
“I’m not sure it’s worth the time, Dean,” Sam said. “Everything’s packed; let’s go.”  
Dean lifted Cas from the bed, again feeling how sharply his shoulderblades and backbone protruded. He could have sworn, too, he felt warmer than the last time he had touched him.  
But once Cas was on his feet, he was able to walk unaided, though he clung to pieces of furniture and leaned on walls for support.  
When they reached the stairs, Dean wrapped his arm around Cas. “Let me help you up, ok?”  
For the first few steps, he was nothing more than an extra railing, but a third of the way up, he found himself taking more of Cas’s weight, and near the top, he was essentially lifting Cas up each stair.  
Cas still leaned on him in the short distance between the entrance to the bunker and the Impala, but he was moving his feet again.  
Dean settled Cas into the back of the car, helping him to lay comfortably across the long seat, and tucking one of his flannel shirts around him. Cas usually responded to the soft fabric the way a child would to a familiar blanket, seeming to relax at its touch, but now he barely seemed to notice it.  
The grey cast of his skin had darkened to a bluish tint around his lips and nails.

By unspoken agreement, Sam and Dean took turns talking to Cas, trying to keep him conscious and alert. At first he answered, albeit mostly with grunts, but sometime after they pulled off the highway, Dean’s story about seeing the world’s largest ball of twine for the first time was met with silence.  
The brothers turned towards each other for a single second, then Sam was contorting himself to turn around and face the back, reaching out to shake Castiel.  
Dean forced himself to look at the road, fought not turn to the sound of Sam’s voice.  
“Cas? Cas? You’ve got to stay with me. Cas!”  
He could feel Sam’s elbow hitting the back of the seat.  
“Dean.” Sam’s voice was calm, so calm that Dean felt his blood run cold. “I think we should go to the hospital now.”  
  
There was a knife in his chest and a band round his side. There was motion, and there was noise, but they were grey and vague.  
The knife was sharp and the band was tight. It was hard to breathe against the constricting band, and every time he tried, it pressed harder on his ribs, and the knife sank deeper.  
“Cas? Are you ok?”  
The words were distorted like light in water, and he could not tell who was speaking.  
“Cas, look at me. I need you to answer me.”  
Everything was dim and blurry. He tried to turn his head towards the voice, but found he could not.  
“Hold on, Cas. We’re getting you to help. Just hang on.”  
He knew the voice; it was- it was- it was the Winchester. The other Winchester, not-Dean.  
His head dropped to his chest.  
“Cas? Cas? You’ve got to stay with me. Cas!”  
A hand grabbed his shoulder. It was large, and its grip was painful.  
Someone was shaking him. The other Winchester was shaking him.  
Cas wanted to cry out, to tell him to stop. The other man had to know that it was agonizing, that it made the knife grate on his ribs. It was wicked, cruel to do such a thing. But he could not cry out, did not have the voice. Instead, he flung out an arm, blindly flailing for the source of pain, and shoved not-Dean away.  
The cruel grip loosened, but there was still a knife- a knife and a band.  
  
Centrifugal force far more powerful than Castiel’s feeble blow nearly tore him from Sam’s grasp as the Impala lurched into a sudden turn.  
Sam looked up and realized they were rounding the final bend of a u-turn. “Dean? What are you doing?”  
“If we’re going to the hospital, we’ve got to get back on the highway.” Dean spoke quickly, and his eyes darted to the rearview mirror.  
Castiel lay limp in the backseat.  
“No, there’s a hospital in Mankato, too.” Sam swung around to face Dean, nearly hitting his head on the roof.  
“But we’ve got to take a different exit.”  
Dean had barely slowed to turn around; now he swung into the opposite lane to give a wide berth to a middle-aged woman walking an immense and shaggy dog.  
“No, we don’t, Dean,” Sam insisted.  
“Yes, we do.” Dean glanced at the rearview mirror again. “I know what I’m talking about.”  
“Look, I’ll show you.” Sam dug his phone out of his pants pocket, opened a maps application, and typed rapidly. “See?” he demanded, pointing at the screen. “I told you, we don’t need to get back on the highway. We’ve got to turn around.”  
Dean glanced at the map, swore, and cranked the wheel.  
Sam twisted around in his seat, struggling to keep Cas from rolling onto the floor. He shouted inarticulately as Dean accelerated, slamming him into the bench seat.  
On the side of the road, the woman with the dog stared.  
Neither of the Winchesters noticed. Sam was clinging to Castiel, shaking him, begging him to stay with them. Dean scanned the road ahead of them, pushing the accelerator so hard that the engine whined, constantly listening for some sound from the backseat.  
Castiel neither moved nor spoke. Sam would have been happy if he hit him again; it would have meant he was still conscious, still fighting. Instead, there was only the terrible, gasping sound of his labored breaths.  
His face was so blue, he looked like he was drowning.  
Dean’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror. Sam had stopped shaking Cas; his hand was just resting against his chest. He couldn’t tell if it was meant to steady or to comfort him.  
Maybe he was making sure his heart was still beating.  
“Cas?” he asked.  
“Not good,” Sam answered.  
The engine roared; Castiel struggled to gasp out a breath that seemed to provide him with little air.  
“Ezekiel?”  
Sam couldn’t tell if it was a question or an order.  
It didn’t matter anymore. “He’s not here.”  
They were at the edge of Mankato now. Sidewalks bordered the road and traffic was heavier. Dean swore as an elderly couple pulled in front of him, then stopped for a red light.  
The Impala lurched and surged forward; horns sounded from all sides; Sam, unprepared, was flung into the edge of the seat and had the wind knocked out of him as he tried to keep Cas’s inert form from sliding to the floor.  
“Dean- ooff- sidewalk!” he yelled, looking around frantically. “Augh- red light! Dean, that’s a red light!”  
“I know.” Dean’s teeth were gritted; his eyes darted to the back of the car, to his brother supporting the fallen angel. “We gotta get there.”  
Sam was rearranging Cas as best he could, trying to make him more comfortable, trying not to think that perhaps nothing he did could cause him comfort or pain. His body still burnt with fever, but his hands were icy cold.  
He looked up at the street signs. Mankato wasn’t a very large town; they couldn’t be more than five minutes away from the hospital. But five minutes seemed like a very long time.  
Castiel’s breathing had been rapid, his body trying to get enough oxygen. But now, there were pauses between his agonizing struggles for air, and his fingers looked bruised and curled claw-like towards his palms.  
Sam found himself listening for the next ragged inhalation, pressing his palm against his chest to find the erratic pulse.  
“Dean,” he asked quietly, “can you go any faster?”  
They were doing at least twenty-five as they pulled into Jewell County Hospital. Sam, facing the back, couldn’t see the speedometer, but he could feel the Impala fishtail as they swung past the gates and into the parking lot.

The air was too heavy, his chest was crushed, he couldn’t breathe. Panicking, he made a convulsive effort, but the air was immediately driven from his lungs, escaping in a soundless gasp as a knife sank into his heart.  
The support at his back vanished. The point of agony stabbed deeper; he tried to cry out, but there was no sound, no air.  
He fell back, arms caught him, and he knew the arms, strong and rounded with muscle; Dean was here, he was _safe_ , he was not afraid.  
Dean was holding him in his arms, and it was all going to be alright. With an effort, Castiel managed to drape one arm over Dean’s shoulders.  
Then he was being lifted up, and his lips formed a silent _oh_ , because it wasn’t alright, it _hurt_ , there was a knife and band, and the band tightened, and the knife scraped against his ribs.  
Darkness loomed up before him, and with nothing more than a vague sense of surprise, he fell in.  
  
Dean was shocked by how light Castiel was. It was like carrying a girl.  
As he lifted him, Cas revived a little, and managed to wrap one trembling arm around his neck. He raised the other slightly, then pain distorted his expression, and he went limp in Dean’s arms.  
Dean was already running towards the hospital.  
It was Jo all over again. The glass doors blurred before him, but he had to keep running, keep going, faster, faster; his burden was too light, too still- he swore he heard hellhounds panting behind him.  
He couldn’t remember where he was, but that didn’t matter, all that mattered was making it to the doors, making it inside before the hellhounds got to them, before the blood seeped out of that limp body and into his shirt. He was shouting, and he didn’t know what. _Help, someone had to help them, this couldn’t happen again_ -  
His boots ate up the pavement; the doors seemed to surge up before him and- _Bobby, Bobby stabbed by the demon knife, Bobby with a bullet in his brain_ \- he was shouting, he was flinging himself through doors that opened too slowly, doors that barely got out of his way in time, and people were turning, looking at him- why wouldn’t they _do_ something?  
He held out Castiel, unable to speak, and suddenly, there was a crowd around him- _where had it come from- Bobby and Lisa and Sam and Jo_ \- and Cas was no longer in his arms, and he caught a glimpse of a gurney being wheeled away, and then someone shoved him back, and they were speaking, but their voice was tinny and echoing, and the room was spinning around him-  
  
He was looking at something pink. It took Dean a moment to realize it wasn’t uniformly pink; it was a pattern of bright pink flowers with lime green stems and leaves on a pale background. The flowers weren’t lying completely flat, either. Whatever surface they were against had a lot of curves and lumps and- _oh_.  
Dean hastily looked up from the nurse’s chest. Thankfully, she hadn’t noticed- or, more likely, didn’t care.  
He began to rise from the blue plastic chair- he didn’t remember sitting down- but the nurse put a hand on his shoulder.  
“Sit,” she said firmly.  
“Cas?” Dean asked, still trying to rise. He was surprised that his voice was hoarse; he cleared his throat.  
“The doctors are with him now,” the nurse said, pushing him back into the chair. She was at least eight inches shorter than him, but she was heavyset and determined. “We will tell you as soon as we know anything. Until then, you’re going to sit in that chair, and drink that cup of coffee, and you’re not going to get up until it’s finished.” She pressed a styrofoam cup of black coffee into his hand.  
Dean looked away. The coffee was hot in his hand, but everything else felt strangely detached. He startled as he realized Sam was standing next to him. He was holding the Impala’s keys. Sam noticed his confused expression. “Yeah, I locked it for you,” he said quietly.  
Dean cringed as he remembered how he had left his baby: straddling four parking spaces with two doors open and the keys in the ignition.  
He took a swallow of coffee.  
It burned as it went down his throat, the heat dissipating in his chest. The pain was good. It anchored him somehow, reminded him that this was real.  
Sam sat down beside him.  
He drank again.  
They didn’t talk; there was nothing to say.  
Time seemed to pass very slowly.  
His fear gave the coffee an acrid aftertaste.  
Sam stood up. “I… need a minute.”  
  
The helplessness, the despair, the taste of swallowed tears, were all familiar, but the loneliness, the emptiness that loomed up inside him, were vaster than he remembered. He looked at his brother and knew he felt the same way. With a pang, he realized it had been more than a year- almost two- since he had been sitting in a waiting room like this, but for Dean, it had only been a few months.  
"I- need a minute," he said, standing up.  
Dean didn't respond; Sam wasn't sure if he'd heard.  
With limbs that felt leaden yet somehow distant from his body, Sam followed the halls to the chapel.  
"Ezekiel, it's Cas. I think we might-" He couldn't say it, even in the empty room. "Ezekiel, please. _Please_."  
He waited.  
There was no answer.

Sam said nothing when he came back, and that said enough.  
Dean waited.  
The coffee helped, but his thoughts were still strangely sluggish as he replayed the last two days, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong, what he’d missed.  
He looked up mechanically as someone entered the room. It was the pushy nurse- Carol- and a black man in a doctor’s coat.  
Dean closed his eyes for a moment, trying to brace himself against the wave of dread.  
Opening them, he looked instinctively towards his brother, and was surprised to find that Sam was looking at him as well.  
“Mr. Winchester?” the doctor asked. They had decided to use their real names; Cas’s medical records at Maple Valley were already under that name. “I’m Dr. Greyson. I’m a pulmonary specialist here.”  
He was young for a doctor, only mid thirties.  
“Cas?” Dean barely trusted himself to speak.  
“He’s in the intensive care unit. We have him stabilized, for now.”  
The obvious implications of the _for now_ made it feel like the room had just dropped thirty degrees. Dean’s fingers dug into the styrofoam of the empty cup.  
“He has acute respiratory distress syndrome, probably brought on by severe infection- sepsis.”  
Dean flinched.  
Dr. Greyson seemed to read his reaction.  
“Both conditions have a very rapid onset, Mr. Winchester. I doubt you could have brought him in much sooner.”  
Dean wet his lips, swallowed hard. “What’re his odds?”  
The doctor studied him. “He’s young, he’s strong- he’ll fight hard. But- he’s young, he’s strong- this shouldn’t have happened.  
“I’d say about fifty-fifty.”  



	8. Chapter 8

The monitors beeped; the ventilator hissed.  
Dean dragged his hand across his jawline, stubble scraping his palm.  
The sound was loud in the mechanical hush of the hospital room.  
Dean looked hastily at the bed, a guilty expression briefly crossing his face.  
But Castiel had not moved- had not moved since Dean had carried him across the parking lot.  
The only sign of life was the rise and fall of his chest, but that wasn’t him, that was the ventilator, and Dean tried not to look at that too long or too close, because it felt _wrong_ ; the rhythm was too even, unnatural, inhuman- not that he had ever thought he would think of Cas as human.  
He turned away. All the windows looked out onto the hospital. Doctors and nurses hurried up and down the hall, checking pagers and pushing medical equipment.  
He kneaded his eyes, then drew his cell phone out of his pocket. God, but he was tired. He wondered if Sam was already asleep; he’d lost a lot of stamina since he rejected Ezekiel. Dean scrolled through three days’ worth of text messages. _Double room_ , Sam had texted as soon as he had checked into the motel. Right now, the prospect of a bed- even a lumpy, worn-out one- was really appealing.  
Involuntarily, Dean turned back to Castiel.  
He wasn’t going to leave. He’d abandoned Cas enough times already. If- _when_ \- Cas woke up, he was going to be there.  
Dean stretched, leaning back so the hard plastic chair jabbed at him painfully. The sharp pain, different than the dull ache in his back from sitting still for hours on end, made him feel more alert. That was good. He needed to be awake, needed to be here, for Cas.  
  
Dean looked exhausted. There were bags beneath his eyes, and his chin drooped towards his chest. He reached out his hand to gently brush his stubble-roughened face, then reconsidered. Better to let him sleep.  
He looked around the room: blank walls, harsh lights, glazed windows. The bed arrested his gaze, but only for a moment. What lay there was more machine than man. Besides, a man was not his body.  
The further he drew from the bed, the more the pain receded. It was distant now, gentle waves lapping at the shore as the tide went out.  
With one last, regretful look at Dean, Castiel turned toward the door.  
“Hello, Castiel.” There was a woman standing by the door.  
It had been so long since he had seen her that it took him a minute to place her.  
“Anna?”  
“Castiel,” she smiled at him, but her grey-green eyes were still somber. “You’ve done so much, fought so hard. You must be so tired.”  
It wasn’t exhaustion he felt so much as pain. Even here, it tugged at him.  
“I know, Castiel. I know.” That same sad smile. “I have been human, too. There’s pain- more than we could have ever imagined. But you don’t have to suffer anymore.”  
She extended her hand toward him, slowly. The gesture looked gentle, welcoming. “Come with me. Come home.”  
Castiel reached toward her hand, then stopped, looking back over his shoulder. Dean was still asleep by the bed.  
Anna followed his gaze. “Don’t worry about him,” she said softly. “He’s human. They’re used to it. Oh, it will hurt for a while, but, in time, the pain will fade.”  
Castiel’s hand clenched into a fist and dropped stiffly to his side. “No. Not him.”   
Dean bore wounds that would never really heal: his mother and Bobby and John and each and every time he had lost Sam.  
Another blow might kill him.  
“No,” Cas said again. “I can’t.”  
“Are you sure?” Anna studied him, head angled to one side. “If you stay, there will be pain. For a long time.”  
He did not need her to tell him. It lapped at him, tugged on him, weighed on him like a chain. “I know.”  
Anna stared into his eyes for a long moment. Her eyes were deep and sad. Her lips parted, as though she were about to speak.  
He turned from her to Dean. When he looked back, she was gone.

Dean sat bolt upright. The chair creaked in response.  
Instinctively, he looked at the bed, Cas’s bed.  
He looked the same as before. He couldn’t really read the monitors, but no lights were flashing, no alarms were going off. For better or for worse, there was no change.  
Dean tugged his overshirt closer. The room was freezing. Maybe some jackass had turned on the air conditioning. That couldn’t possibly be good for Cas.  
Dean reached for the call button, then stopped as he heard a soft tap at the door. He knew that knock.  
“Dr. Greyson?” he asked as the man entered. “What are you doing here? It’s gotta be five in the morning.”  
“Closer to six,” the doctor answered.  
Any hour before dawn was equally god-awful in Dean’s opinion, and his expression showed it.  
“When I have patients in the ICU, I try to come in early to check on them,” Dr. Greyson explained.  
“Thanks,” Dean said. Being a hunter meant having a lot of encounters with the medical profession, and lately he’d gotten pretty tired of doctors who told him it was in God’s hands, or started the conversation by asking about organ donor status. At least Dr. Greyson was trying to help and acting like an actual human being. “How’s Cas doing?”  
“He’s holding steady. I’d even say- guardedly- we’re seeing some improvement on at least one front. I was just in the lab, looking at his latest blood work. The results are looking better, and his fever’s been down for the past twelve hours. It hasn’t spiked during the night, either, and I feel that’s significant. I contacted Dr. Paul with the results- he’s more of an expert than me; I specialize in pulmonary issues- and he thinks Castiel might be starting to beat the infection.”  
“Then can you-?” Dean looked at the ventilator, hesitant to ask his question outright.  
“Not yet,” Dr. Greyson said gently. “Patients in Castiel’s condition typically need a ventilator for at least a week. It’s been three days, and we’re not yet seeing any improvement in respiratory function. We’re going to continue providing supportive care, and keep monitoring for signs of improvement.”  
Dean nodded. It wasn’t great news, but it wasn’t bad either. He could take it.  
“But,” Dr. Greyson continued, looking more serious. “What we’re really concerned about is Castiel’s lack of responsiveness. But you’re family. You’re more familiar with his reactions than us, and he might be more inclined to respond to you and Sam anyways. That’s part of the reason it’s so important to have you here and involved.”  
Dean waited for him to continue. Dr. Greyson had already explained this when he was persuading the head nurse to disregard visitor policies and let him and Sam stay as long as they wanted.  
“Has he opened his eyes? Or moved at all? Or done anything, no matter how slight, might be in response to you?”  
Dean shook his head.  
Dr. Greyson scribbled a note on a clipboard. Dean couldn’t help but feel that he had failed, that he should have been able to coax some kind of reaction out of Cas.  
“Then it’s the same as yesterday,” Dr. Greyson said. “Castiel is only showing a response to strong pain stimuli. Generally, this means a person is very deeply unconscious, and often implies some kind of neurologic damage.  
“In this case, though, we’re honestly not certain. Two things can prevent a person from responding: inability, or deliberate refusal. According to Castiel’s files, he was delirious when he initially began receiving treatment for this injury. Is that correct?”  
“Yeah,” Dean said. Sam had talked to some of the nurses at Maple Valley while he had been out hating himself for being such an idiot that he might lose his brother, and, when he had come back, Sam had angrily told him about Castiel’s frantic certainty that he was being held hostage, his repeated attempts to tear the IV from his arm and how he had nearly leapt from a fifth story window. Nothing could be farther from the inert, unresponsive Cas he had seen in the Jewell County ICU.  
“Delirious patients aren’t always agitated,” Dr. Greyson explained. “Sometimes, especially with elderly patients, they become highly withdrawn. There’s a possibility that’s what we’re looking at, and, based on Castiel’s response to his most recent pain test, that might be the case.”  
Dean made himself scarce any time the doctors wanted to do more than check the monitors. It felt too intrusive otherwise.  
“Castiel had quite a response,” Dr. Greyson clarified, chuckling a little. “He didn’t open his eyes, but he did manage to punch our nurse Karen right in the nose.”  
Dean apologized hastily, though he secretly felt a little proud of Castiel, and relieved that he was still fighting.  
“No, no,” Dr. Greyson held up his hand. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Besides, Karen told me it wasn’t much of a punch.”  
Dean side-eyed Cas, wondering how deep that angel training went. “So, you think he’s delirious? That’s good, right? Means there’s no brain damage?”  
Dr. Greyson looked serious again. “I think it’s a possibility, and it’s the best circumstance anyone on staff has been able to come up with. But, there is another possible explanation: Castiel’s blood oxygen was very low when he was brought here. It’s possible that his brain did not receive enough oxygen for quite some time. In that case, the damage would likely be permanent.”  
Dean’s shoulders sank. He grabbed the back of the chair to support himself.  
“Mr. Winchester- Dean,” Dr. Greyson said firmly. “I want you to understand you didn’t do anything wrong. Acute Respiratory Distress progresses very rapidly, and you brought him here as soon as you could. You did the right thing.”  
Dean sank back into the chair. Cas could be as good as dead, and all because he was a lousy nurse. If he’d spent the night in Cas’s room instead of being so eager to sleep in his own bed, or if he’d gone straight to the hospital instead of messing around with the clinic first, or if he’d just driven a little faster…  
“We’re doing all we can for him.” Dr. Greyson sounded distant. He patted Dean’s shoulder as he left, but Dean couldn’t find it in him to respond.  
He’d wanted Sam to bring him some coffee, but now he just hoped he would punch him like he deserved.  
  
“I shouldn’t have made Ezekiel leave.” Sam hadn’t punched him like he had hoped. He had just put the coffee down on the bedside table and looked sad and broken and defeated, which was even worse, because it meant Dean was such a fuck-up, other people wound up blaming themselves for his messes.  
“Wasn’t your fault,” Dean said. “I started all of this.”  
Sam didn’t say anything to that, but he stayed all through the day until late in the evening. Tugging his coat on, he stopped in the doorway.  
“Dean, you ought to go with me. Back to the motel. Get some sleep.”  
Dean shook his head stubbornly. “I’m staying here.”  
Sam frowned. “Cas is unconscious. It’s not like you can do anything for him, Dean. He probably doesn’t even know you’re here.”  
“I’m not leaving.” Dean stared sullenly into his lap.  
Sam shrugged. “Your call. But you won’t do him any good if you pass out the moment he wakes up.”  
Dean looked up abruptly, mouth open. _You mean- you think- he might?_ But before he could speak, Sam was gone.

Dean was not going to sleep. He fidgeted, paced, pinched the thin piece of skin between his thumb and first finger. He was going to stay alert. Eventually, though, even the small, sharp shocks of self-inflicted pain ceased to have much effect on him and he sank into a sort of daze.  
Around two in the morning, he was jolted into awareness, suddenly aware that something was _wrong_.  
Instinctively, he turned towards Castiel- and, for a moment, froze, unable to comprehend, let alone respond.  
Castiel was rigid, locked into a spasm, his back arched and head thrust back. His eyes were open, but were almost rolling, not slowing in their frantic motion, not focusing on any fixed point.  
Dean’s mouth was very dry. He couldn’t swallow. He must- oh, God, was he having some kind of _seizure_?  
That realization, a sharper stab of horror, forced him out of his petrified state, though his mind was still reeling and he clung to a desperate hope that this wasn’t really happening, was all a horrible dream.  
Castiel’s head was lashing from side to side now. Cords stood out in his jaw and his neck. Flecks of foam dotted his lips.  
“Hel-” His mouth was too dry; his voice broke; he couldn’t get the word out. “Help!”  
The room was small, but now it seemed cavernous, swallowing up his voice, making it sound weak and distant.  
“Nurse!” His gaze darted over the room, searching for some way to draw attention- The call button sat to the right of his elbow.  
But before he could press it, the door was swinging open- the monitors must have triggered some kind of alarm at the nurses' station; their read-out looked nothing like what it normally did- and two nurses were hurrying in, and telling him to go wait outside.  
Dean went. He couldn’t stand another moment of Castiel convulsing, couldn’t bear the thought of watching whatever the nurses- more were arriving from down the hall, and a doctor who wasn’t Dr. Greyson- were going to do to him. He’d seen worse, he knew- bodies disemboweled and all but inverted by the savagery of the monster that had attacked them- but if they were going to sink a knife into Cas’s flesh, he couldn’t stand to watch.  
Disgust at his own cowardice washed over him. He shouldn’t be standing here alone. Dean fumbled in his pockets for his phone, and pulled up Sam’s number.  
_Can you come over here? It’s Cas._  
The answer appeared on his screen two minutes later.  
_I’m on my way._

Twelve minutes later- twelve impossibly long minutes in which Dean had checked his phone so often that the screen had never had a chance to darken before he pulled it out of his pocket again, twelve minutes in which he peered through the window to the hospital room, relieved that his view was largely blocked and ashamed at his relief- twelve minutes later, Sam came running down the hall.  
His mouth was half-open and his jacket had slid below his shoulders. Dean didn’t care.  
“How’s Cas?” Sam seemed out of breath. It was the first time Dean had seen him run since Ezekiel left. Then again, he must have run to follow them into the hospital when they first arrived.  
“No idea,” Dean admitted. “No one’s told me anything.”  
Sam turned to the window. Cas was almost completely hidden from view, screened by the pastel-clad nurses. There were two doctors in the room now, the unfamiliar one who had arrived shortly after the first nurses, and Dr. Paul. They both had their backs to him. Dr. Paul had the haircut of a grizzled drill sergeant, and the other doctor had a thick blond ponytail that hung almost to her waist. Dean’s stomach lurched. She looked way too young. He knew that made him sound like a geezer, but then, only a geezer should have been in this situation so many times, and, besides, in hunting terms, he was getting up there.  
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Dean whispered, forgetting that the glass provided more obstacle to hearing than to vision, and afraid to distract the medical team working quickly and incomprehensibly behind the barrier.  
Sam shook his head.  
“You should have done pre-med instead of law stuff.” His weak attempt at teasing did nothing to break the tension.  
“Wouldn’t have helped,” Sam said. “They don’t teach you medical stuff in pre-med. It’s just really rigorous.”  
They lapsed into silence. Dean felt a weight pressing down on him, and realized Sam’s hand was on his shoulder.  
Footsteps echoed down the hall, and the comforting weight was suddenly gone.  
It was night in the ICU; any patient could be in crisis, and any doctor could be hurrying down the hall, but they turned towards the sound, and saw Dr. Greyson, still pulling on his lab coat as headed towards Cas’s room.  
It felt like a long time until he left the room. The hall lights buzzed, flickering to a brighter setting. Sam stood rigid, like the soldier he had always refused to be. Dean hadn’t known it was possible to be this tense and this exhausted at the same time. He turned away from the window and leaned against the wall.  
“Mr. Winchester and- Sam and Dean?”  
He hadn’t heard Dr. Greyson leave the room. The exhaustion vanished and the tension ratcheted up by a factor of ten.  
Sam was the first to find his voice. “What’s wrong with Cas?”  
Dr. Greyson held up his hands. “Actually, it’s good news.”  
Sam and Dean stared at him, uncomprehending.  
“Good news,” Dr. Greyson repeated. “Castiel was fighting the ventilator- far more… vigorously than any other patient I have seen. He seems to be regaining consciousness, and he’s breathing on his own. However, we needed to use some sedatives to get him off the ventilator safely, so it’s going to be a while before he’s entirely clear. We’re keeping him on oxygen, as he’s still weak, but if he continues to be stable, we’re going to move him out of the ICU in a few hours.”  
Dr. Greyson gave a sort of half-smile. “I have a feeling that Castiel never does anything halfway, does he?”  
Neither Winchester was able to answer him.  
  
The room in the general ward had actual windows- windows that looked out onto a parking lot instead of a hall, and let in real sunlight. The bed was angled back, halfway to a sitting position, and Castiel reclined against it. He was pale, and the clear tubing of an oxygen cannula traced over his sunken cheeks, but he was breathing deeply and steadily. Dean sat in a chair near his bedside.  
Castiel looked towards the window, turning his head without raising it from the pillow. There was a stand of trees past the parking lot and road. Their leaves glinted gold in the sun. He gazed out at them for a moment before looking up at the clear blue sky. His eyes sank closed. He was still so tired.  
Castiel turned back to the hospital room, almost looking at Dean, keeping him at the edge of his vision.  
When he spoke, it was quietly, slowly, and deliberately, with a pause at the end of each sentence so he could draw breath.  
“It hurt so much that I wanted to die. If I had died, it would have stopped hurting. But I couldn't die, because you were there, and if I died while you were with me, you would feel very sad. I didn't want you to be sad, so I couldn’t die until you left.  
“But you never left. For five whole days, you stayed with me.”  
Castiel fell silent, studying Dean with eyes that shone with emotion and seemed too large in his wasted face.  
Dean frowned, grunted, looked down at his cell phone, then out the window. He was staring straight ahead, perhaps at the cars or the trees, but certainly not at the sky. He glanced at Castiel, shook his head slightly, then stared ahead at the wall. “I am _way_ too sober to have this conversation.”  
Castiel blinked. Dean reached into his pocket, realized that he no longer carried a flask, and got up, muttering that he “needed to get a beer.”  
Castiel watched the door close.  
His face was wet again.  
  
Predictably, there was no beer in the hospital. The best substitute Dean could find was a Coke, not that that was the same thing at all.  
He’d take what he could get.  
Dean stepped into the garden, leaned against the side of the building- let security try and stop him- and winced at the sweet taste. He really needed a beer.  
Sun glinted off the Impala’s roof as it rolled into the parking lot. The door swung open and Sam emerged from the driver’s seat, legs unfolding comically as he stretched out to his full height. He seemed to see Dean immediately, and approached his square of garden.  
“Needed a break.” Dean offered his explanation before Sam could do more than give him a confused, worried frown.  
“Actually,” he continued. “I think Cas will be fine on his own tonight.”  
Determined to look nonchalant, he took another swig of the soda, and immediately winced again. They had agreed, or rather Sam had insisted, that Cas shouldn’t be left alone. Dean thought Sam was greatly overstating his fragility, but had gone along with his brother’s proposed schedule. Now he braced himself, preparing for Sam to angrily lash out again.  
Instead, his brother stepped past him, brow furrowed as though he were deep in thought.  
Dean shrugged, poured out the remainder of the can of cola, and headed out towards his baby, already anticipating the feel of the pedal under his foot and the hum of the engine.  
  
Castiel kept his gaze down as the door opened. He did not want to hear what Dean had to say. He already understood him perfectly. He swallowed hard against the sob that threatened to choke him as the memory of those anguished, lonely weeks rose up within him and promised to be repeated _forever_. He kept his head bowed to hide the shameful trails down his cheeks.  
“You ok?”  
Sam.  
Sam had come back for him.  
There was a warmth and a tightness in his chest, but it was not pain. He had learned much about pain in his time as a human, and it was not pain.  
He did not like to think of his time in the other hospital, but he thought of it now. He remembered Sam opening the door to his room, Sam speaking to him in that gentle voice, waking up after that awful argument he still didn’t understand to find Sam by his side.  
His breath escaped in a strangled gasp.  
Sam had come back for him.  
No matter what awful thing he had done- memories of a wall creaking, collapsing, Hell flooding out over the ruins of the dam- Sam had never given up on him.  
He had always come back.  
Castiel was no longer crying, but he couldn’t speak either.  
Sam looked down at him, concerned.  
Cas was afraid he was going to call a nurse, or go and get help.  
He didn’t need help.  
“No- please stay,” he managed.  
Sam studied him a moment more, then nodded. Cas wondered what Sam saw in his face. It seemed almost like magic what he could tell about a person by looking at them.  
He sat down in the chair that Dean had just left. His face was almost level with Cas’s.  
He placed a hand on the bed’s plastic guard rails.  
Castiel understood.  
His hands were shaking as he reached for Sam’s. He clung to the one large hand with both of his own, as tightly as he could. Sam’s hand was warm and strong and solid.  
“Hey,” Sam said. “I’m not going to leave you.”  
And Castiel knew that it was true.  


**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: Lying and emotional manipulation, blood, descriptions of injuries, mentions of sex, mentions of attempted murder, mentions of death, discrimination, nightmares, panic attacks, flashbacks, disassociation, fainting, mentions of weapons, hospitals, restraints, yelling, arguing, sedation, swearing, analogies to rape, mentions of alcohol, mentions of vomit, and mentions of alcoholism.


End file.
